LIBRARY .OF CONGRESS. 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 



OR 



BOOK AND WORLD WONDERS 



BY 



REV. J. HENDRICK.SON M'CARTY, M.D., L D. 



AUTHOR OF 



Two Thousand Miles Through the Heart of Mexico^ Inside the G^ , 
The Black Horse and Carryall^ etc. 



Inspired theology, the haven and sabbath of all our contemplations ? " — Bacon. 
" Lucerna Dei spiraculum hominis." 




^ 



NEW YORK: HUNT & EA TON 
CI NCI NN A TI: CRANSTON & STOWE 

1891 









"55 s«* 



Copyright, 1891, by 

HUNT & EATON 

New York, 



TO 

THE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN 

WHOM 

I HAVE SERVED IN MANY PLACES AS A PASTOR 
THIS VOLUME 



iLobtncjIj) 3IrrB-crtti£iJ 



INTRODUCTORY. 



THIS book has had its birth in a desire to show 
that most of the objections, if not all of them, 
made by people of a skeptical turn of mind against the 
Bible are not well founded. 

We know there are some things in the Scriptures 
which do not accord with the observations and ex- 
periences of mankind in these modern times, and 
hence by some have been relegated to the domain of 
myths and legends, and classed with the vagaries and 
superstitions of unlettered tribes and ages. We also 
have endeavored to make plain the fact that in the 
natural world and in history as well there also have 
been some strange, yes, very wonderful tilings, which, 
had they been written in the Bible, would have been 
declared impossible, unbelievable. 

Throughout we have endeavored to be as true to the 
teachings of science as to Scripture, for both lead the 
mind to God. But is it not a fact that very many 
people think more about the mysteries in this book 
than they do about the simple statements of belief and 
the duties which are inculcated ? 

More time is spent by some persons over the unes- 
sential than over the essentials. This grows, in part, 
at least, out of the natural desire of the mind to seek 
out hidden things. 

The reader, doubtless, is aware that for over three 
hundred years the governments of the civilized world 



6 INTRODUCTORY. 

have been fitting out expeditions at great cost of life 
and treasure to solve the problems of the polar regions. 
We presume the search will be continued even if it 
takes a thousand years, or at least until some brave- 
hearted adventurer reaches the pole. We hope this 
will come to pass, for until then we shall not have 
come into the full possession of our earthly king- 
dom. It was written in the great charter in the be- 
ginning : " Thou shalt have dominion . . . over the 
earth." 

In the study of the Bible much valuable time is 
spent in endeavoring to unravel the minor mysteries — 
to find answers to questions which have no practical 
value. For instance, Whom did Cain marry? Was 
the beast which personated Satan in the garden of 
Eden a veritable snake, or was it an ape ? What sort 
of animals did Samson employ in setting fire to the 
grain-fields of the Philistines? What was Paul's 
" thorn in the flesh ? " Many other questions of a 
similar character have been asked again and again, as 
if the soul's highest good depended on their correct 
answer. 

Many a minister has dwelt so much upon the dis- 
putable and doubtful things in the Scriptures that all 
positive teachings have been passed by, and hungry- 
hearted people have gone out from the Church un- 
helped and unfed. Many a Christian has passed by 
with comparative indifference the " weightier matters 
of the law" and dwelt on the trivial things, " seeking 
rest, and finding none." They are like one who cav- 
ils over the chemistry of water while dying of thirst. 

Others seem eager to sound the hidden depths and 
to unveil what God has purposely concealed. No 



INTRODUCTORY. 7 

wonder they arc dazed and bewildered. Still others 
must find the Bible, because professedly written by 
men under divine guidance, in absolute accord with 
the " latest developments of science." We believe in 
science and we believe also in Scripture, and have no 
fear that the former will ever overthrow the latter. 

There are some things very clear, some not so clear. 
There is here and there a doubtful passage in the 
Bible. A few errors have crept in during the last 
few thousand years, mainly through the blunders of 
transcribers and printers, but none that harm its sub- 
lime teachings. There are numerous figures of speech 
and poetic representations which, if taken in a literal 
sense, would rob the Bible of its meaning. 

The Scriptures have been given to help us live, not 
to interest the mind merely. That they do the latter 
is not to be denied ; but the Bible is a heart-book. It 
teaches us that the best way to live is to follow its 
teachings ; that vice is secession from God ; that holi- 
ness is essential to true happiness. 

How far must a soul fly to escape the dominions of 
the Eternal ? The largest telescope in the world can- 
not answer the question. A Christian on his knees 
can see farther into the universe than the astronomer 
through his glass. To a prayerful soul the heavens 
are always open. We are lifted out of self and sin 
by a power outside of and above ourselves. If it be 
true that the sun in the heavens colors the rose, it is 
equally true that in human life conformity to the law 
of God is the way to grow spiritually pure and beau- 
tiful. Two cannot walk together unless they be 
agreed. We should walk with God, for we are in 
his keeping, and are upheld by his power every mo- 



8 INTRODUCTORY. 

ment; but to walk with him aright we must love 
what he loves and hate what he hates. 

Refuse to do this, and there is only one alternative, 
and that is to* fight the universe. What would any of 
us think of the commander of a ship who should 
stand on the quarter-deck and curse the wind and the 
waves ? Let the winds roar and the waves beat, his 
business is to guide the ship. 

The Bible exists to banish sin from the heart and 
the life of man. So let us steer clear of sin. There 
is no use of singing lullabies over human depravity. 
Sleep will not change the blood-thirstiness of a tiger 
or neutralize the venom of a serpent ; asleep or awake 
they are the same. Sin asleep, if it can be, is sin still. 
Some say the world is very wicked. Alas ! we know it ; 
but what would it be if all these hundreds of agencies 
for good were withdrawn, or if these ten thousand 
voices calling us to the right were silenced? 

The world needs science, commerce, art, and it has 
them. But what is better than the gospel of love ? 
" Ye must be born again " rings down over the ages. 
A man may confess his sins and sin on. He may re- 
solve on reformation and yet not reform. What he 
needs is help — the Bible is a helper. It is an old book, 
a much-loved book, a much-hated book ; but somehow 
it manages to stay in the world. 

There are some things in it which some of us imag- 
ine we could improve. Most of us think we could 
improve the weather and the seasons were they left 
to us. The Bible is the only key that can turn this 
human lock — the heart of man ; and that shows that He 
who constructed the lock furnished also the key. If 
every thing on the pages of this book which offends 



INTRODUCTORY. 9 

the taste of the fastidious reader were eliminated, 
there would yet be left more simple and beautiful 
truth than the average believer puts in practice — 
enough surely to save the guiltiest. Any thing can 
be criticised, even a landscape or an anthem ; the Bible 
has not escaped it. 

We submit these pages to a generous public hop- 
ing that they who read them may turn to the old 
book and find in it not only food for thought, but 
abundant spiritual consolation. The Author. 

Syracuse, N. Y., April 7, 1891, 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. page 

The Old Book 13 

CHAPTER II. 
The Old Book in its Relation to Science 24 

CHAPTER III. 
The Old Book and its Themes 37 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Stone Book I , 46 

CHAPTER V. 
Fact and Fiction in Human Life 61 

CHAPTER YL 
Fact and Fiction in Holy Writ . 77 

CHAPTER VII. 
Fact and Fiction Among the Heathen 92 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Man the Monarch 100 

CHAPTER IX. 
What is Life ? 122 

CHAPTER X. 
Life in Larger Forms 134 

CHAPTER XL 
Life — A Study 141 

CHAPTER XII. 
Death 148 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. PAGE 

Longevity — The Patriarchs 162 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Noah and the Flood 174 

CHAPTER XV. 
Book Wonders — Samson the Mighty 190 

CHAPTER XVI. 
A Group of Samsons 204 

CHAPTER XVII. 
World Wonders — Chord and Canvas 215 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
World Wonders — Trees 232 

CHAPTER XIX. 
World Wonders — Animals 247 

CHAPTER XX. 
Struggles with Unbelief 259 



CHAPTER XXI. 
What is Truth ? 271 



CHAPTER XXII. 
The Age of Science 28£ 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Responsibility for Our Belief 30& 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
The Logic of Experience 318 

CHAPTER XXV. 
The Goal 332 



FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT; 



OR, 



BOOK AND WORLD WONDERS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE OLD BOOK 



THIS old book which lies open before me, a copy 
of which may be found in nearly all the homes 
of the civilized world, whatever may have been its 
origin, whether absolutely and in every part a revela- 
tion from God to man, inspired in every paragraph, 
line, or expression, and consequently a divine book in 
the fullest sense of the word ; or part divine and part 
human, as most people believe ; or entirely human — 
a sentiment with which we do not accord — the fact 
remains indisputable, the Bible is a wonderful crea- 
tion. 

It is more than mere rhetoric to compare it to the 
ocean on whose broad expanse the navies of the world 
are launched, whose hidden depths lie almost beyond 
the reach of the mariner's plummet, and yet into 
whose plashing surf a child may wade. This old 
book is an ocean ; it too has depths which cannot be 
measured by the fathom-line of human science and 
philosophy, and yet is so simple that the merest rustic, 



14 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

the child in either years or intelligence, may read it, 
find comfort and direction in its wholesome revela- 
tions, and be made strong by its spiritual truths. It 
requires a good deal of faith to believe all the Bible ; 
but that is no impeachment of the book any more than 
it is an impeachment of Nature that she has things too 
deep for our comprehension. 

Faith, or belief in things above and beyond our 
sight, is the secret of all spiritual growth as well as 
of all true progress. No man grows strong in any 
direction in whose heart the faith-principle is not su- 
preme. There is no conflict between faith and reason. 
In the development of a human life there is first the 
exercise of the senses, then rqason, and next faith. We 
touch, taste, hear, and see things before we reason 
about them. It is through our faith-faculty that we 
come into relationship with the invisible world. By 
faith we are enabled to reach the loftiest summits of 
human excellence; it is faith that supports us when 
we descend into the deepest recesses of life ; on the 
wings of faith we may sweep out into the spaces and 
mount up to the very throne of God. God has spoken 
to us in nature, through star and flower and worm, 
but who understands all his speech ? To the eye of 
Him who watches over a sparrow's fall there is nothing 
great, nothing insignificant. The man of science 
trains his eye to a similar impartiality in the study of 
nature. A little patch of moss to the common eye 
seems destitute of interest — to the eye of the accom- 
plished botanist it is a little world in itself. Some 
one complained to the great Swedish naturalist, Lin- 
naeus, that Sweden did not afford scope enough for the 
study of nature. The naturalist, pointing to a clump 



THE OLD BOOK. 15 

• 

of moss, replied : "No man will live long enough to 
master the mosses on the rocks of Sweden." 

One day, when lost in an African desert, Mungo 
Park came across a tuft of moss. This bit of green 
growing in an arid waste was a messenger from God 
to the desponding explorer. "If God cares for the 
moss," he said to himself, " surely he cares for me." 
And he went on his way, cheered by the sight of a 
bit of moss. Do we not remember the beautiful lines 
of Wordsworth ? 

" To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

There are some people who seem to think, judging 
from their speech, that the Bible should be reduced 
to the simplicity of an ordinary human volume. If 
such were the case, then who would believe it to be a 
divine book ? The natural world about us is made up 
of a few simple elements — sixty-four or live in num- 
ber, so far as we know at present. Not only is the 
whole earth constituted of these, it is supposed, but 
possibly the entire material universe — their combina- 
tions are infinite. No man can ever hope to under- 
stand this great volume of nature. It has come from 
the mind of God, and to know all would be to know 
God. . So the Bible is made up of simple moral truths, 
variously combined and presented to us in scraps of 
history, biography, poetry, metaphor, incident, parable, 
hyperbole, and allegory, etc. And coming from God, 
like the earth, must it not necessarily partake of his 
thoughts ? And are not his thoughts too deep often 
for human thought ? 

The facts of Scripture are at least as well attested 



16 FACT AND FICTION IN HOL 7 WRIT. 

as those of any history ; and though it may contain 
many figures of speech they are to be understood as 
such, for through them some of the sublimest truths are 
set forth. Hence we think it is not irreverent to speak 
of " Fact and Fiction in Holy "Writ." But of this we 
shall have more to say farther along. 

All that is asked now is that the reader will follow 
us patiently and impartially. This is not a vindica- 
tion — the Bible has reached beyond the need of any 
man's defense or apology. It is buttressed in the af- 
fections of millions of our race, and only Omnipotence 

himself could banish it from human societv. It treats 

t/ 

more of the supernatural than of the natural, for the 
supernatural is the natural of the universe. Many 
things are recorded upon its pages which all do not be- 
lieve. These remarkable statements and occurrences 
belong either in the realm of fact or fiction. "We know 
that some of the grandest truths are taught in fiction. 
In both the Old Testament and the New there are 
accounts of miracles wrought through human agencies 
as incontestably proven as any of the ordinary events of 
secular history. Shall they be accepted or rejected ? 
At this point many people are divided in their opin- 
ions. One thing, however, has not been, to any great 
extent, a matter of dispute — the Bible is a book of 
morals such as is not possessed by any people on earth, 
except Jews and Christians. How are we to account 
for this fact? Only by admitting its divinity. One 
thing is certain : to abide by its precepts, to revere its 
mysteries, and to drink in its spirit is the sure pathway 
of ascent to the highest personal, social, and national 
development in both intelligence and virtue. There 
are those who read the Bible to find fault with little 



THE OLD BOOK. 17 

things — the minor portions — as if one should repudiate 
the Declaration of Independence because its author 
neglected to dot an i or cross a t. No scholar 
denies the fact that there are obscure passages in the 
Bible, as well as a few spurious ones ; but they are 
easily pointed out and do not mar the teachings of 
the book. How they came there is not very clear, 
nor is it very important, but they are there. There 
are spots on the sun, but who thinks less of the sun on 
that account \ lie who searches for these and for the 
seeming discrepancies, and who reads every strain of 
poetry as if it were prose, and deals with every meta- 
phor as if it were a mathematical equation, who ap- 
plies to Scripture language the exactness of law or 
science, who sees in every expression born out of a 
luxurious Oriental imagination a plain matter of fact, 
is not only doing injustice to the book but to himself. 
He may fitly be compared to a traveler belated at 
nightfall miles from his destination who stops to read 
the inscription on the guide-board by the road-side, 
and instead of pushing on to where the index-finger 
points, thus escaping the darkness and the impending 
storm, falls to criticising- the lettering of the board. 

But let us consider this book as a production — a 
book merely. It divides itself into sixty-six sub-books, 
which are attributed to about forty different waiters, 
and who lived through a stretch of nearly *or quite 
two thousand years. As a whole it is a unit. The 
New Testament quotes the Old frequently, while the 
Old Testament is the foundation of the New. Not 
far from one half of the New Testament w 7 as written 
by St. Paul. The next most extensive writer was the 
gentle and loving John. Of all the New Testament 



18 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

writers Paul was the only one who could claim any 
eminence in point of scholarship. The writers are 
mostly men of good native ability ; but if any, except 
St. Paul and possibly the " beloved physician," Luke, 
ever enjoyed the benefit of academic training both 
history and tradition have failed to make note of it. 
And yet how ably did they write ! What lofty themes 
inspired them, and what eminent characters have they 
chronicled ! These writers present different types of 
character. They were as unlike as musical instru- 
ments or trees. There was Jeremiah the sorrowful, 
Daniel the sagacious, Isaiah the sublime, David the 
poet, and Solomon the philosopher. The same varied 
talents appear among the writers of the New Testa- 
ment. All seemed to have exercised their natural 
gifts, whatever may have been the degree of their 
inspiration. Moses and Solomon were the most learned 
of any of the writers of the Old Testament. The 
former, with his vast knowledge and proud intelli- 
gence — the legislator, reformer, and deliverer, brought 
up in the learning of Egypt — began the work of writ- 
ing the Bible. John, with his tender depths of feel- 
ing and spiritual insight, completed it. 

But how little we know of the inner lives of these 
men, even the last two mentioned. There was cer- 
tainly nothing in them calculated to foster or exalt 
human vanity. Moses was a foundling rescued from 
the oozy rushes of the Nile; and John a lonely exile 
at last amid the rocks of Patmos, an island in the 
yEgean Sea, whither he had been banished by a decree 
of one of the Roman emperors " for the word of God 
and the testimony of Jesus Christ." 

The Bible, humanly speaking, emanated from the pens 



THE OLD BOOK. 19 

of a class of men whom the world never would have 
selected as authors capable of writing for all time. Is 
it not a proof of their inspiration that what was writ- 
ten in that age is so fresh — so interesting and appli- 
cable in this and all the ages? 

It is a peculiarity of the holy writings that they 
hide no man's faults and cover up no man's sins. 
The greatest characters of the Scriptures were imper- 
fect, and some of them at times were notoriouslv im- 
moral. Even Abraham did not tell the truth — the 
whole truth, at least — on one or two occasions, when 
his own highest good would have been subserved by 
the strictest integrity of speech, which he afterward 
learned. Noah, David, Solomon, Peter, and some 
others were not always guiltless. There is no attempt 
at the concealment of their moral imperfections. Sin 
is always called by its right name. The entire frank- 
ness of this book in dealing with its chief characters 
is strong proof of its divinity. Is the Bible charged 
with being unchaste in its language, in some in- 
stances? It should be remembered that it is a reflec- 
tion of the age in which it was written. Its authors 
were honest enough to make record of the evils in 
human life and societv, calling them bv their true 
names. If it had described onlv the virtues of its 
chief men, sinking out of sight their errors and sins, 
we might then indeed have had reason to suspect it 
of being untrue to what we know has ever been char- 
acteristic of human life. 

It does tell of events quite impossible of belief to 
some minds. For instance, the story of the creation 
of the first woman from a rib of the first man ; the 
first human transgression and "fall," provoked and 



20 FACT AND FICTION- IN HOLY WE IT. 

precipitated by a " serpent " gifted with the power of 
speech; the Noachian deluge; the prodigious strength 
of Samson; the account of Jonah in the whale's belly, 
and some other equally remarkable statements. Let 
us be frank. To many these records savor of the 
mythical, the legendary, and consequently are disbe- 
lieved. The fact is, some people judge of the Script- 
ures by the standards of their own local and tempo- 
rary experience, and hence injustice is done to the 
sacred writings. 

This book is owned by millions and read in hun- 
dreds of languages all over the earth. Six hundred 
years ago the wages of a laboring man in England 
w r ere only about tw^o pence (four cents) a day, while 
the price of a Bible at the same period was, in our 
money, about one hundred and eighty dollars. A 
common laborer in those times must toil on indus- 
triously for thirteen long years devoting his entire 
income if he would possess a copy of the word of 
God. J^ow it can be owned by the poorest of peo- 
ple; for the earnings of half a day by a farm-hand 
will pay the cost of an entire copy of the sacred 
book ; and besides, if any are too poor to purchase it, 
the Bible societies will furnish it freely and gladly. 
What a contrast ! What an illustration of the power 
of the press ! 

You may eliminate from these pages every seem- 
ing contradiction of statement between the writers, 
every crude story, of which there are many, all the 
long chapters, with their almost unpronounceable 
names, and yet there is left a mine of truth — a maga- 
zine of spiritual force. If it be asked why it is that 
60 many millions of our race accept this book as 



THE OLD BOOK. 21 

inspired of God, relying implicitly on its teachings 
and its promises, notwithstanding the many strange 
and mysterious things it records, the answer is that in 
reading it and in following its precepts the heart is 
comforted and the life is made strong. 

At a recent Bible anniversary Mr. W. E. Gladstone 
gave utterance to these words : 

" If we are in any measure to grasp the office, dig- 
nity, and authority of the Scriptures, we must not 
suppose we are dealing adequately with that lofty 
subject by exhausting thought and time in examining 
whether Moses edited or wrote the Pentateuch as it 
stands, or what w T as the book of the law found in the 
temple in the time of Josiah, or whether it is possi- 
ble or likely that changes of addition or omission may 
have crept into the text. If the most greedily de- 
structive among all the theories of the modern critics 
(so seriously at variance with one another) were estab- 
lished as true, it would not avail to impair the great 
facts of the history of man with respect to the Jews 
and to the nations of the world, nor to disguise the 
light which those facts throw upon the pages of the 
sacred volume ; nor to abate the commanding force 
with which, bathed, so to speak, in the flood of that 
light, the Bible invites, attracts, and commands the 
adhesion of mankind. Even the moral problems 
which may be raised as to particular portions of the 
volume, and which may not have found any absolute 
and certain solution, are lost in the comprehensive 
contemplation of its general strain, its immeasurable 
loftiness of aim, and the vastness of the results which 
it and its immediate accompaniments in institution 
and event have wrought for our predecessors in the 



22 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WHIT 

journey of life, for ourselves, and for the most for- 
ward, dominant, and responsible portions of our race.'' 

It may seem almost like a waste of time and energy 
at this late day to write upon this subject. We do it 
because old truths are often lost sight of in the whirl 
and excitement incident to the discovery of new 
ones. Moreover, the sons and daughters do not always 
walk in the footsteps of their fathers and mothers. 
We boast of our science and our civilization, but for- 
get that they are the outgrowth of Bible teachings in 
a great degree. 

The claims of the Bible are based on its antiquity, 
its history, and its contents. That which is old, and 
consequently has survived the wear of long periods of 
time, has some claim upon the respect of thoughtful 
people. We gaze upon the Egyptian obelisk, the 
ivy-mantled castle peering out upon us from the 
Middle Ages, or upon some ancient tomb that possibly 
once held the dust of a king, with peculiar feelings of 
veneration. No matter how we criticise these objects, 
they command us by their very age. Whatever men 
may say of the Bible, its pages bear the impress of 
the buried centuries. It is a message from the past 
to the present, from generations dead to generations 
living. Its utterances are the echoes of voices which 
were hushed in silence ages ago. Astronomers tell 
us of stars which are so remote in the fields of space 
that were they stricken out of existence by the power 
of God at this hour their light would continue to flow 
toward us for hundreds, if not thousands, of years to 
come. So of the men who wrote the books which in 
the aggregate constitute the Bible; they, being dead, 
yet speak the words of truth to us. We do not mean 



THE OLD BOOK. 23 

to say that age alone sanctifies any thing, for even 
time cannot convert falsehood into truth. There are 
some old books that might well be burned, and some 
old customs that need to be forgotten in order that 
the world may make progress. But this cannot be 
said of the Bible. Let us be respectful as we enter 
this temple, over whose archway is cut deeply the 
inscription, "Tims saith the Lord." Come to this 
book then, dear reader, as you would go to a well of 
pure and sparkling water gushing from the rocks 
below, not to find fault with its depths, but to draw 
thereof and drink to the quenching of thy thirst, 
remembering the words of the great Teacher : " Who- 
soever drinketh of the water that I shall give him 
shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him 
shall be in him a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life." 



24 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE OLD BOOK IN ITS RELATION TO SCIENCE. 

THE Bible has a mission, and that mission is not to 
teach every thing we ought to know. This 
thought we shall try to develop as we proceed. It is 
not the purpose of the Scriptures to teacli the world 
science. The Bible occupies a plane above the natu- 
ral world. To open it at random, with a view to 
being directed in the ordinary affairs of life by the 
first passage upon which the eye happens to rest is 
not only an unwarranted use of Scripture, but a ver- 
itable superstition. It brings the Bible down to the 
level of a dice-board. . And furthermore, when we 
speak of the holy writings we mean the original 
writings, the languages in which they first appeared. 
When we speak of inspiration it is not claimed that 
the translations are inspired, though the work has 
been done well enough for all practical purposes. 
But every question of absolute verbal accuracy must 
be referred to the originals. Then, in reply to the 
objection that the Bible is not always true to science, 
I remark it does not claim to be, for it never w^as 
intended to be a text-book on geology, astronomy, or 
natural history. Neither the prophets nor the apos- 
tles ever made any pretensions as teachers of science. 
They did not profess even to adhere closely to the 
exact order in nature. At the time they wrote sci- 
ence, in the modern sense of the word, was unborn. 



THE OLD BOOK IN ITS RELATION TO SCIENCE. 25 

Mere glimpses, it is true, appear in the writings of 
Moses, Job, and some others, as they studied the phe- 
nomena of the heavens and of inanimate creation. 
David, moved especially by these phenomena, gives 
frequent utterance to his feelings in sublime poetic 
strains. Solomon was a naturalist of high order, but 
he was an exception to the generality of mankind in 
his own times. 

The ancients had very vague ideas of the natural 
world. In their conceptions the earth was a plane, 
and not a sphere ; the sun was a great ball of fire 
which sank into the ocean at night, and, of course, 
must have arisen out of it in the morning. It was 
currently reported, too, that they who lived far to the 
westward could hear the hissing noise made by the 
sun as he plunged his fiery mass beneath the billows 
of the great sea in the evening. 

Bible writers believed these same things, and their 
inspiration did not correct their science, for wrong 
science, then as now, might exist with a right heart. 

The Bible speaks of the earth as " stretched out," 
and also of the " ends of the earth," expressions at 
variance with the idea of the earth's rotundity. The 
thought of a great globe floating through ethereal 
space, " hung upon nothing," would have seemed an 
impossibility to them ; and any one inculcating such 
dogmas would have been regarded as insane. 

The earlier Greek astronomers introduced a system 
of crystalline transparent spheres, revolving, one 
within the other, and carrying the planets with them 
around the earth as a center. Far beyond these 
spheres was the primum mobile — the starry sphere 
revolving from east to west every twenty-four hours. 



26 FACT AND FICTION' IN HOLY WRIT. 

This system was incorporated in the philosophy of 
Aristotle, and seems to have commanded the assent 
of mankind for ages. Its truth was hardly drawn 
into doubt till the revival of letters, the commence- 
ment of the true astronomical science of the seven- 
teenth century, and even then the clearest and 
strongest intellects were slow in extricating them- 
selves from the Aristotelian philosophy. It was not 
until the time of Kepler that any real progress was 
made in discovering the true laws of planetary mo- 
tion. 

These old Hebrews, in common with the classical 
writers, understood the sky or firmament to be a solid 
vault as it appeared to an ordinary observer. Moses 
had said, " God made the firmament, and divided the 
waters which were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firmament.' 5 Again, 
the same writer, in describing the rain-fall at the time 
of the deluge, said, " The windows of heaven were 
opened." Even if it was a figurative expression, to 
the unscientific mind it seemed descriptive of some- 
thing material. 

In like maimer, Job speaks of the " pillars of 
heaven." Samuel said, u The foundations of the 
heaven moved and shook." David sang, " He com- 
manded the clouds above, and opened the door of 
heaven." 

There are many other similar expressions, such as 
the " rending of the heavens," the "skipping of 
Lebanon," the floods and trees u clapping their 
hands." To these same people the earth was a 
stationary body, around which the sun revolved. 
Let us not visit any undue reflections upon them 



THE OLD BOOK IN ITS RELATION TO SCIENCE. 27 

on account of their ignorance of the physical world, 
for at a much later period the same condition pre- 
vailed until Copernicus, Tycho Bralie, Galileo, and 
Newton broke forth in a darkened firmament as stars 
of the first magnitude. 

A great commotion was raised when these scientists 
began to teach that the sun w x as the central point in 
our system, around which the earth revolved. They 
could not deny the evidence of their senses. Galileo 
constructed a telescope which revealed to him the true 
motion of the heavenly bodies, so that the plain teach- 
ings of astronomical science could not be successfully 
denied. For this overturning of old-time notions he 
was twice imprisoned by the irate monks, and each 
time recanted, so that the young astronomer lost the 
honor of martyrdom. As he came out of prison, 
however, he stamped the earth with his foot and said, 
" Yet it does move ! " But why this opposition on 
the part of the monks ? Because they preferred to 
interpret nature by Scripture rather than the Script- 
ures by nature. 

" Is it not written in the Bible," they said, " ' The 
world is established that it cannot be moved % ' And 
do not the Scriptures say again of the sun that it is as 
a 'bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and re- 
joiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going 
forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit 
unto the ends of it : and there is nothing hid from 
the heat thereof V The Roman Inquisition took the 
matter in hand and decreed as follows : " First, The 
proposition that the sun is the center of the world 
and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophic- 
ally false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly 



28 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLT WRIT. 

contrary to Holy Scripture. Second, The proposition 
that the earth is not the center of the world nor im- 
movable, but that it moves, and also with diurnal 
motion, is absurd, philosophically Mse, and, theolog- 
ically considered, at least erroneous in faith." It is 
due to the infallible Church to say that in A. D. 1818 
the papal edict was formally repealed, and the Coper- 
nican theory is now taught alike in Jesuit colleges 
and Protestant divinity schools. Until comparatively 
recent times science and natural history had no very 
conspicuous place in the religious training of men, 
and, as a consequence, many were ignorant of the im- 
portant bearings which a right understanding of nat- 
ure has upon the written word. Indeed, Christian 
teachers were afraid of science, especially that of ge- 
ology. The author of this book, when a student, was 
urged by an old and conscientious divine to " let 
geology alone," for its teachings, he said, " tended to 
atheism." Times have changed ; it is now understood 
that both books are God's faithful records ; and if it be 
so, then it follows that either without the other can- 
not be fully understood. Cowper said, "An unde- 
vout astronomer is mad." So an un devout geologist 
or chemist or botanist is mad. The Rev. Richard 
Watson, afterward Bishop of Llandaff, England, who 
wrote a book entitled An Apology for the Bible, in 
reply to Paine's Age of Reason, was elected professor 
of chemistry in the University of Cambridge in 1769, 
and at the time, he informs us, he knew nothing at 
all of chemistry, had never read a syllable on the sub- 
ject, nor seen a single experiment in it. The remark- 
able part of this is that at so late a date the physical 
sciences should have been held in such low esteem 



THE OLD BOOK IN ITS RELATION TO SCIENCE. 29 

that a student could receive his degree without know- 
ing any thing of chemistry. In his honor, however, 
it may be recorded that he studied it fourteen months 
and then began to teach it. 

In the Bible all these questions relating to the nat- 
ural world were merely incidental to the main subject, 
and hence the writers might use the language of 
common life or the more exact language of implied, 
if not real, science without in either case doing vio- 
lence to the word of God. " It frequently," says 
Professor Maury, "makes allusions to the laws of 
nature, their operation and effects ; but such allusions 
are often so wrapped in the folds of the peculiar 
drapery with which its language is occasionally clothed 
that the meaning, though peering out from its thin 
covering all the while, yet lies in some sense con- 
cealed until the lights and revelations of science are 
thrown upon it ; then it breaks out and strikes us 
with exquisite force and beauty." 

The Bible contains repeated instances where not 
only the ordinary speech is employed, but makes ref- 
erence to things that were purely fictitious or legend- 
ary. There is one instance which has been a stum- 
bling-block to many.* The questions have been asked 
myriads of times, " Did the sun and moon really stand 
still at the command of Joshua ? " " Must we believe 
that the law of gravitation was suspended and the 
machinery of the whole heavens interfered with while 
a couple of small armies were fighting a battle on the 
plainsof Beth-horon?" There isnot an intelligent youth 
in Christendom who will not find himself tempted 
to doubt this when he reads it. He may believe that 

* Josh, x, 12-14. 



30 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

the Almighty had power to arrest the planets in their 
orbits ; but, somehow, he instinctively calls this in 
question. He cannot help it, for he cannot see that 
the issue at Beth-horon was of sufficient importance 
to warrant so stupendous a miracle. We all reason 
in about the same way. That would have been in- 
deed a wonderful miracle, but then all miracles are 
wonderful per se, and yet a Christian accepts the 
miracles, believes in them. Take these awav, and vou 
have not much left but the two lids of the Bible. 
Admit the existence of God, then certainly all mira- 
cles are possible. The rationalistic dismemberment 
of the Bible history begins with the negation of mir- 
cles, which is a denial of the supernatural. With the 
belief or disbelief of miracles the entire system stands 
or falls, for all religion rests on the supernatural. But 
in asking too much we may get nothing. 

This account of the standing still of the sun and 
moon has generally been held to commit believers in 
the Bible to its literal truthfulness, when in fact, as 
any one can see by a careful reading, it is a quotation 
introduced into the sacred writings from the lost book 
of "Jasher." To receive this as literal Scripture, 
therefore, is not required. Let us cling to the Bible, 
but not at the expense of a correct rendering ; if we 
do, we shall only drive some intelligent and honest 
people away from it. The standing still of the sun 
and moon, though entirely possible, is no more to be 
understood literally, than the statement that Mount 
Lebanon " skipped like a ealf." David says it did, 
but then David was a poet. If we are to take these 
statements in. a literal sense we are simply converting 
poetry into prose. The above quotation from the lost 



THE OLD BOOK IN ITS RELATION TO SCIENCE. 31 

book of Jasher, "Book of the Upright," describing 
the standing still of the sun and moon, is a poetic 
rhapsody, invoked as a sort of " grand march" in a 
triumphal procession after a great victory. In another 
place in the Scripture we are told that " the stars in 
their courses fought against Sisera." Are we to believe 
that the planets were transformed into warriors and 
came into Palestine and fought battles with men ? 
when it is only meant that the heavenly pow T ers were 
on the side of the Lord's hosts, or rather that Barak, 
the commander of the Israelitish army, assaulted his 
enemies under the cover of darkness, or in the dim 
light of the stars, and thus it was that the " stars in 
their courses fought against Sisera."" 

The Bible contains frequent instances where not 
only the ordinary speech is employed, but where allu- 
sions are made to things that were purely legendary. 
We are told in one place that "Saul and Jonathan 
were lovely and pleasant in their lives ; and in their 
deaths they were not divided ; they were swifter than 
eagles ; they were stronger than lions," This, too, is 
a poetic rhapsody from the lost book of Jasher, and 
has been accepted by all critics as a very pretty piece 
of elegiac poetry, very much like some modern fu- 
neral sermons where the real is lost in the ideal. Saul 
was not a very " pleasant " sort of character, judging 
from what we know of his history. Again, current 
notions and opinions of the people were often alluded 
to, as, for example, the belief that the color of the 
clouds indicated an approaching change of weather. 
Jesus himself made use of this : " When it is evening, 
ye say, It will be fair weather : for the sky is red. 
And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day : 



32 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

for the sky is red and lowering." He was not deliv- 
ering a lecture on meteorology ; if he had been he 
most likely would have told them that neither the 
color of clouds nor the quarter of the moon had any 
influence whatever on the weather, and that all the 
so-called weather-prophets are mere guessers, who 
may sometimes happen to guess correctly ; that all 
these popular signs are very uncertain. 

An old saying has come down to us from a remote 
past which may or may not be true : 

" Red at night is the sailor's delight, 

Red in the morning, the sailor takes warning." 

It is most likely that Jesus attached a symbolical 
meaning to what he said about the signs of the 
weather. The "red at even" of the Old Testament 
betokened fair weather at hand. The red sky of the 
morning signified the storms of persecution which 
should descend upon the early Christian Church. At 
all events, these people were better prophets of the 
weather than interpreters of those prophecies which it 
was their duty to expound; or possibly he meant 
that the signs of the sky are uncertain, and may 
deceive us, but moral signs, if properly understood, 
never mislead. Who has not read that beautiful pas- 
sage in one of the psalms of David: " Thy youth is 
renewed like the eagle's ? " * Now, the fact is, the 
eagle does not renew his youth ; he lives sometimes 
for thirty or forty years and dies. But there was a 
belief in ancient times that when this kingly bird 
found himself growing old he spread his wings and 
with one mighty effort soared aloft into the sun, 

* Psa. ciii, 5. 



THE OLD BOOK IN ITS RELATION TO SCIENCE. 3S 

where his youth was renewed. The figure is most 
beautiful and expressive, but judged of from the 
stand-point of natural history is not true. David does 
not say it is true ; he only makes use of the myth to 
show how man, as " age creeps on apace," may look 
away into the heavens, where his powers shall be 
renewed and eternal youth be gained. 

Scripture terms are true representations of natural 
phenomena. Had the Bible been written in the lan- 
guage of the exact sciences it would have been to the 
great anxious world seeking for spiritual truth and 
comfort a sealed volume. The psalmist said in one 
place, "The sun knoweth his going down." Suppose 
he had uttered this in scientific form; then it must 
have read something like this : " There is a law by 
which is determined for any particular day the pre- 
cise time at which a line drawn from the sun to a 
given point on the earth will be tangential, and in 
what azimuth that line will fall," etc. Alas for 
that psalm ! To have used the language of science 
would have left the world without a Bible for thou- 
sands of years. If written in the language of the 
exact sciences every one would have needed a univer- 
sity education in order to understand it, and even then 
many might have failed, for the language of science 
is sometimes very hazy. 

Aloses came the nearest of any of the sacred writers 

to teaching science in the necessarily brief account he 

gives of the beginnings of things ; but it was only to 

show the world that God is the Creator of all things, 

and thus to banish from the mind of mankind any 

possible thought of the eternity of matter. 

Indeed, whether it be Moses, Job, David, or Peter, 
3 



34 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

all allusions to natural history, philosophy, and sci- 
ence are made simply to illustrate moral and religious 
truths. Even modern astronomers talk of " sun- 
sets," and of the " ascension" and " declination " of 
the heavenly bodies, as though the Ptolemaic system 
were yet believed, and no one protests against it. 

When we come to the gospels we find them to be 
somewhat diverse in their general features. They 
agree, and yet do not agree. The writers were intent 
simply on giving to the world great spiritual facts and 
truths. Jesus was the great Teacher, " sent from 
God," and yet he did not instruct the world upon all 
the questions which were of interest to men. He 
could have revealed the possibilities of steam-power, 
railroads, telegraphs, electro-motors, phonographs, and 
all other modern inventions and discoveries, for they 
were just as possible in that age as in this; all the 
forces and all the materials existed then as well as 
now, but he said nothing about them. ]STor did he 
assume to settle disputes among men about their 
philosophies or their politics. He did not tell the 
world which school was the true one in philosophy, 
nor did he settle the thousand social questions which 
have agitated the world through all its ages. The 
earth was a globe and revolved on its axis, carrying 
both teacher and disciple around the whole circle of 
the heavens every twenty-four hours, and yet these 
same disciples thought it was an extended plane rest- 
ing on they did not know what. Why did not this 
great Teacher inform the world of its erroneous opin- 
ions ? Because it was not his mission to teach science, 
politics, and philosophy. 

All mere intellectual questions have been left to 



THE OLD BOOK IN ITS RELATION TO SCIENCE, 35 

the natural powers of the mind, and mankind must 
learn by observation and experience in every thing. 
We are placed here to study the stars, the flowers, 
insects, birds, animals, the earth, and man, and in 
these studies to grow wise and strong. How little 
these innocent people of the olden times knew about 
the universe! What were the stars above to them? 
Mere points of light in the dome of the heavens. 
They knew far less than we with our telescopes and 
spectroscopes, and yet even we are only beginning to 
know something of God's great temple. The only 
large body of water of which they had knowledge 
was the Mediterranean, which they spoke of always as 
the " Great Sea." Of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans 
they were profoundly ignorant. The little strip of 
country on the east of the Mediterranean Sea — Pal- 
estine and its adjacent neighborhood — comprised in 
their thoughts the " whole earth," and such it was to 
them. Of the average man of those times Alexander 
Pope's lines would have been true : 

" He thought the visual line that girt him round, 
The world's extreme ; and thought the silver moon 
That nightly o'er him led 'her virgin host 
No broader than his father's shield." 

Injustice is done the Bible when it is demanded 
that it shall acquaint us with the things we ought to 
learn by our own efforts. 

Shall it be rejected with all its wisdom, because, 
forsooth, a few small discrepancies or verbal inaccura- 
cies have crept into it during the last four thousand 
years ? A few minor errors have found place there 
mostly through human mistakes or neglect. In the 
British Museum there is a collection of the different 



86 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

Bibles printed in England a couple of centuries or 
less ago, among which there is one edition that con- 
tains six thousand verbal errors of one kind or another ! 
But, thanks to modern scholarship, the Bible of to-day 
is about as free from human mistakes as would be 
possible. 

But what if in Matthew's gospel the word " whale" 
is used in reference to Jonah, when in the original 
the term signifying sea-monster is employed, which 
may have been some other species of fish ; what if 
one writer does say that the robe put upon Christ at 
the crucifixion was " scarlet," another that it was 
" purple," and still another that it was a " gorgeous 
robe ; " no one's salvation is affected by the variation. 
Any good commentary will explain the seeming dis- 
crepancies. We must remember that in translating 
from one language to another a word is often made 
to do service in several relations, and sometimes there 
are seeming contradictions when in reality there are 
none. Shall we discard the Bible because of these ? 
No. 



THE OLD BOOK AND ITS THEMES. 37 



CHAPTER III. 

THE OLD BOOK AND ITS THEMES. 

rriHERE are two main topics of which this old book 
JL treats, namely, creation and redemption. All 
other subjects are subordinate to these. The Mosaic 
account of the creation of the heavens and the earth 
lies at the foundation of this record. There is a lofti- 
ness of style about it which contrasts strongly with 
all mere human attempts to account for the origin of 
the present system. The history of all nations, Rome, 
Greece, China, Mexico, goes back to an age of myths. 
All have their legends and their divinities, weird and 
fanciful. The old Hebrew nation is the solitary ex- 
ception. Here, in the sacred books of the Hebrews, 
it is simply and sublimely declared, " In the beginning 
God created the heaven and the earth." If all other 
nations have had their myths and traditions alike con- 
fused and conflicting it is not just to assume that the 
Hebrews followed the same delusions. 

Reasoning from analogy is never safe, for analogy 
proves nothing, though it may illustrate and fortify 
an argument. The traditions concerning the begin- 
nings of other nations are characterized by an air of 
extravagance from which that of the Hebrews is ex- 
empt. Let us take the account given by Berosus, 
an educated priest of Babylon, who lived about two 
hundred and sixty years B. C. He wrote in the 
Greek language, and was a man of large informa- 



38 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL 7 WRIT. 

tion on many subjects. Fragments of his writings 
have been preserved by Josephus, Eusebius, and others. 
Even these fragments are said to be of great value, 
as they relate to the most obscure portions of Asiatic 
history. 

This eminent author has given an account of the 
creation which we present here for the sake of con- 
trast. " In the beginning," wrote Berosus, " all was 
darkness and water, and therein were generated mon- 
strous animals of strange and peculiar forms. There 
were men with two wrings, and others even with four, 
and with two faces ; and others with two heads, a 
man's and woman's on one body ; and there were men 
with the heads and horns of goats, and men with 
hoofs, like horses, and some with the upper part of a 
man joined to the lower parts of a horse, like cen- 
taurs ; and there were bulls with human heads, dogs 
with four bodies and with fishes' tails, men and 
horses with dogs' heads, etc. A woman ruled them 
all, by name Omorka, which is the same as 'the 
sea.' 

"And Belus appeared and split the woman in 
twain ; and of the one half of her he made the heaven, 
and of the other half the earth ; and the beasts that 
were in her he caused to perish. And he split the 
darkness and divided the heaven and the earth asunder, 
and put the world in order ; and the animals that could 
not bear the light perished. 

" Belus upon this, seeing that the earth was deso- 
late, yet teeming with productive power, commanded 
one of the gods to cut off his head, and to mix the 
blood, which flowed forth, with earth, and form men 
therewith and beasts that could bear the light. So 



THE OLD BOOK AND ITS THEMES. 39 

man was made, and was intelligent, being a partaker 
of the divine wisdom." 

We are almost led to believe that the Darwinians 
found their theory of development in this heathen 
account of the creation of man. There is about as 
much reason in one as in the other. But turn now 
to the Mosaic record, and what a difference is seen ! 
"What childishness in the one, what manliness in the 
other ! How misty the one, how clear the other ! 
How foolish the one, how grandly reasonable the 
other ! 

b " In the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth. 

" And the earth was without form, and void ; and 
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the 
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 

"And God said, Let there be light : and there was 
light. 

" And God saw the light, that it was good : and God 
divided the light from the darkness. 

" And God called the light Day, and the darkness he 
called Night. And the evening and the morning were 
the first day. 

" And God said, Let there be a firmament in the 
midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from 
the waters. 

"And God made the firmament, and divided the 
waters which were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firmament: and it was 
so. 

" And God called the firmament Heaven. And the 
evening and the morning were the second day. 

" And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be 



40 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land 
appear : and it was so. 

" And God called the dry land Earth ; and the gath- 
ering together of the waters called he Seas : and God 
saw that it was good. 

" And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the 
herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit 
after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth : 
and it was so. 

" And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yield- 
ing seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, 
whose seed was in itself, after his kind. . . . 

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, 
after our likeness : and let them have dominion over 
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and 
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every 
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

" So God created man in his own image, in the image 
of God created he him ; male and female created he 
them. 

" And God blessed them, and God said unto them, 
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, 
and subdue it ; and have dominion over the fish of 
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every 
living thing that moveth upon the earth. . . . 

" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
life; and man became a living soul." 

The cosmogony of Moses is the only one in the 
world which has in it sufficient merit to warrant seri- 
ous consideration. It is the most complete of all 
documents bearing on the origin of things. Hugh 
Miller called it " science poetically expressed." 



THE OLD BOOK AND ITS THEMES. 41 

But the Bible deals with another subject, namely, 
redemption, in which more particularly it touches the 
heart-life of the world. The trend of all its teach- 
ings is toward the spiritual welfare of mankind. 
Almost the first chapter in Genesis points to a com- 
ing Deliverer. All the histories, prophecies, songs, 
and parables cluster about the idea of a mysterious 
man, a messenger who should come to earth in a mi- 
raculous way and upon a lofty mission, and prove his 
authority by laying down his life for that of all other 
men. 

The Bible influences in a very high degree the lit- 
erature of the world. Its phrases are woven into the 
tissues of human speech wherever the book is known. 
In the conversations, not alone of the common people, 
but of the educated classes, it is constantly quoted ; 
its expressions are so sharp, its sentences so plethoric 
of meaning, its proverbs so like pearls and diamonds, 
that their use is an embellishment of human speech. 
When Ave cannot say a thing to suit our idea, for 
want of proper language, what do we do but draw on 
the Bible, and often irreverently? Indeed, people 
sometimes do this in jest, alas! and thus "steal the 
livery of heaven to serve the devil in." There are 
but few books, whether of science, history, art, or life, 
in which there will not be. found some Scripture quo- 
tation, or reference, or expression used to illustrate a 
thought or make more forceful the ideas of the au- 
thor. So in novels, in newspapers, in great senatorial 
debates, in almost every sort of literary production, 
written or spoken, we find more or less of Bible, 
and often in a form which shows most plainly that 
the authors had not " searched the Scriptures " very 



42 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

carefully. The Bible is a repository of gems of 
thought which have stood the critical test of the ages, 
crystallizations in speech as much above the ordinary 
as diamonds are above crude charcoal ; and often 
when a speaker wishes to give point to a remark, or 
finish up a sentence nicely, and thus say something 
well, and beautiful, what does he do but go to the 
Scriptures, not to " obtain eternal life " for himself, 
but to give life to his speech or sentence, w T hich 
might be dead without it. 

Nothing interests people so much as the doctrines 
of redemption. How to escape an offended Deity and 
placate his wrath has absorbed the thought of both 
the heathen and Christian world in all ages. It is 
only in the Gospel of love, the Gospel of the mysteri- 
ous Man on whom the world's thought is being cen- 
tered more and more, that we find answer to the 
longings of the soul. It is not strange, therefore, that 
the literature of the world has been tinged, if not 
permeated, with Bible language and influence. So 
widely has it been scattered, and so universally has it 
been read and quoted by writers, of all classes, in all 
departments of letters, that should every printed copy 
in existence suddenly become by some magic proc- 
ess blank paper the entire Bible could be reproduced 
from other books. Thousands of commentaries have 
been written upon it, in whole or in part. Then, 
besides, there have been dictionaries, encyclopedias, 
reference-books, works on archaeology, philosophy, 
sacred geography, natural history, narratives of travel 
and exploration, monographs on special themes, works 
on Christian theology, Christian experience, and biog- 
raphy, tracts, and hymns — the latter to the number 



THE OLD BOOK AND ITS THEMES. 43 

of one hundred and fifty thousand! Blot these all 
out, and more than half the literature of the world 
would be destroyed. 

Could the suffrages of scholars be given on the 
question, as to which are the three greatest names in 
the literature of modern times it is quite certain that 
most would agree in naming Dante, Milton, and 
Shakespeare. The name of Dante, most likely, would 
never have been so universally known and immortal- 
ized in the Divina Comedia if its author had not 
possessed an accurate knowledge of the Scriptures* 
Milton's great poem, " Paradise Lost," was the out- 
growth of distinctly Christian culture. His figures 
may be too strong, his coloring too severe, yet had 
there not been a Bible there could not have been a 
" Paradise Lost." How is it with Shakespeare ? Some 
one has said that if all he borrowed from the Bible 
were eliminated nothing characteristic would be 
taken away. No judgment could be more radically 
wrong. English literature names no secular writer 
who gives clearer indications of a genuine Christian 
culture, so far as the understanding is concerned, than 
the author of " Hamlet." The passages in his writings 
in proof of this are quite numerous. The reader can 
search them out at his leisure. But as an example 
take the of r-quoted speech of Portia to Shylock : 

"The quality of mercy is not strained; 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blest; 



Or this 



It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." 



" It is an attribute of God himself ; 

And earthly power doth then show likest God's, 



44 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

"When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 
Though justice be thy plea, consider this, 
That, in the course of justice, none of us 
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; 
And i hat same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy." 

Had not a far greater than Shakespeare long before 
said, " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain 
mercy? 5 ' We cannot speak of Shakespeare as a de- 
vout believer and as a pure-hearted Christian man ; 
but that he understood the Bible is as certain as that 
Bunyan understood it, in a certain sense, and out of it 
wrote the immortal fiction, Pilgrim^s Progress. 

Such is the Bible, a hated book by some, a much- 
loved and prized book by others ; one that touches 
the springs of human life as no other ever did or can. 
He who starts out on the perilous voyage of life with- 
out this chart incurs the risk of being dashed on the 
rocks of sin and error. 

Let it be known to the young reader especially 
that the world's greatest and best men, through all 
the ages, have been students of this book. It is the 
one volume which stands out alone among all the 
myriad volumes that have been printed as the sun 
shines out of the heavens paling all the stars of night. 
It not only pictures life but reflects it and elevates it. 
It is a mirror in which we see ourselves, a dispens- 
er of remedies which heal our soul-maladies, a key 
which unlocks hidden and mysterious things, a maga- 
zine of power to move onward the society of the 
world toward millennial glory. When Sir Walter 
Scott was nearing death, sitting by an open window 
one morning, looking out upon the beautiful Tweed 



THE OLD BOOK AND ITS THEMES. 45 

in silent contemplation, lie suddenly aroused and said 
to his attendant, " Read to me." " What shall I 
read ? " questioned the attendant. " There is only 
one book in the world," answered the great novelist, 
" the Bible." The volume was brought and opened 
at the fourteenth chapter of St. John, which was read 
to him throughout. " There," replied Sir Walter, 
" that is beautiful, that is comforting." Soon after 
he fell peacefully to sleep, to wake no more. 

" If I err," wrote one who declared his belief in 
the Bible, " it is in a heavenly region ; it is in fields 
of light. I am content to cheat mvself in fields of 
light with visions of eternity. If I err it is with the 
disciples of philosophy and virtue, with men who 
have drunk deep at the fountain of human knowl- 
edge, but w T ho dissolved not the pearl of their salva- 
tion in the draught : I err with Bacon, the great con- 
fidant of Nature, fraught with all the learning of the 
past and almost prescient of the future, yet too wise 
not to know his weakness and too philosophic not to 
feel his ignorance ; I err with Milton, rising on an 
angel's w r ing to heaven, and, like the bird of morn, 
soaring out of sight amid the music of his grateful 
piety ; I err with Locke,* whose pure philosophy only 
taught him to adore its Source, whose w r arm love of 
genuine liberty w r as never chilled into rebellion with 
its Author ; I err with Newton, whose star-like spirit 
shot athwart the darkness of the spheres too soon to 
re-ascend to the home of its nativity. With men like 
these I shall remain in error. Nor shall I desert those 
errors for the drunken death-bed of a Paine or the 
delirious war-whoop of those men who would erect 
their altar on the ruins of society." 



46 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 



CHAPTER IY. 

THE STONE BOOK. 

BY whatever process the earth came into existence, 
whether created by the fiat of the Almighty in six 
literal days of twenty-four hours each, or six minutes, 
or six indefinite periods of time measured by thou- 
sands or even millions of years each, one thing is 
certain, it does exist ; in this we have a great and un- 
disputed fact. 

There is a small sect of philosophers who live in 
the misty mazes of speculation, holding to the belief 
that there is no outside objective world of material 
entities. With them all is ideal — all is within us — 
ideas and their relations, that is all ! Bat when one 
burns his fingers with a piece of red-hot iron, or gets 
a cinder in his eye on a railway-train, or stumbles 
over something in the dark to his injury, somehow 
the impression becomes very strong that there is some- 
thing besides ideas in the world. We can scarcely 
read some things which have been written, with even 
seeming sincerity, without wondering why the insane 
asylums are not more populous. 

Not very long ago the writer stumbled upon a defi- 
nition of plant life in a learned book,* the author of 
which says : " These forces are developed by the 
retrograde metamorphosis of the organic compound 
generated by the instrumentality of the plant, whereby 

* Correlation and Conservation of Force. 



THE STONE BOOK. 47 

they ultimately return to the simple primary forms, 
water, carbonic acid, and ammonia, which serve as the 
.essential food of vegetables." The same author, al- 
luding to animal life, says : " Of these organic com- 
pounds one portion (a) is converted into substance of 
the living body by a constructive force which (in so 
far as it is not supplied by the agency of external 
heat) is developed by the retrograde metamorphosis 
of another portion (b) of food. And while the ulti- 
mate descent of the first-named portion (a) to the 
simple condition from which it was originally drawn 
becomes one source of the peculiarly animal powers — 
the psychical and motor exerted by the organism — 
another source of these may be found in a like meta- 
morphosis of a further portion (c) of the food which 
has never been converted into living tissue." We do 
not know but the author perfectly understood what he 
was writing about ; but suppose the Bible had been 
written in language like this, what would have been 
its fate ? 

There is a universe of matter, and it is under the 
control of Almighty God in every part, with whom 
" all things are possible." He works to-day by means 
of agencies which were ordained in the beginning. 
The universe is a vast mechanism, and it is not irrev- 
erent to speak of God as a great world-builder. This 
mechanism, with its majestic movement of suns and 
planets, light and heat, oceans and tides, seasons 
and men, is shaped, moved, and guided by infinite 
power and wisdom, and is animated by infinite 
love. The power which alone could create the uni- 
verse could also endow it with all its beauty and 
capacity. This universe was born out of the mar- 



48 FA GT AND FICTION IN SOL 7 WRIT. 

riage of elementary atoms by the joining of lesser 
unities to form the greater, in accordance with a 
principle of absolute order and harmony. Thus 
Nature took her perfect form. With this type of 
creation ever before us — the manifestation of God 
in his works — let not the word mechanism, if it 
affects only the humblest organism, appear low or un- 
worthy. 

It may be proper at this time to give a brief re- 
sume of the nebular hypothesis originated by La 
Place, a French mathematician and astronomer who 
lived in the sixteenth century. This theory teaches 
that " the matter of this earth, as well as that of all 
other planetary bodies of our solar system, originally 
constituted an immense nebula, extending out into 
illimitable space ; that this nebular mass had an ex- 
ceedingly high temperature, which gradually cooled 
off during the long periods of time, and as it cooled 
and contracted its velocity of rotation increased. From 
a motion which was very slow at the first it continued 
to increase until the centrifugal force arising from 
the rotation became equal to the attraction of the cen- 
tral mass, when this zone necessarily became detached 
from the central mass. In this way a number of 
zones of nebulous matter were successively detached 
until by gradual condensation the central mass be- 
came of comparatively small dimensions and great 
density. These zones thus successively detached 
would form concentric rings of vapor, all revolving 
in the same direction around the sun. If the parti- 
cles of each ring continued to condense without sep- 
arating from each other they would ultimately form 
a liquid or solid ring. But generally each ring of 



THE STONE BOOK. 49 

vapor would break up into masses, revolving about 
the sun with velocities slightly different from each 
other. These masses would become spheroidal in 
form — that is, they would form planets in a state of 
vapor. If one of them were large enough to attract 
each of the others in succession to itself the ring of 
vapor would be converted into a single spheroidal 
mass of vapor, and we should have a single planet of 
great bulk for each zone of vapor detached. But if 
one of these masses had a preponderating size they 
would all continue to revolve about the sun in inde- 
pendent orbits, and would form a zone of little plan- 
ets such as we have actually discovered between the 
orbits of Mars and Jupiter, known as asteriods." * 

Such, in brief, is the nebular hypothesis of La Place. 
The oneness of the solar system is seen in the light of 
recent discoveries. Nor does this view interfere with 
the Mosaic account. Science has shown that the earth 
at one time formed a part of the sun. The investiga- 
tions of scientists with the spectroscope have revealed 
in the sun no fewer than twenty-five distinct elements 
which are known among things terrestrial, and there 
is every reason to believe that the remaining elements 
either existed formerly or exist now in the body of the 
solar orb. Among the metals discovered in the sun's 
atmosphere is iron, w r hich along with the other metals 
is in a state of vapor. Not only is the presence of iron 
unmistakably made out, but its position among other 
metals is found to be just where it might be expected, 
having respect to gravity and the atomic weights 
which these metals are known to possess. 

Whether this be a true or false theory we shall not 

* Exposition du Systeme du Monde, 6me edition, note vii, p. 465. 
4 



50 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

discuss it here, only to say that God is the Creator of 
the earth by whatever process it came into being. His 
power is unlimited. Let us view things as we see 
them. 

In nature at the present time forces are busily at 
work which have been in operation through all the 
ages in the past, though we think not to the same ex- 
tent, nor with the same degree of energy. Changes 
are constantly going forward under the silent and 
persistent influence of natural law. We know that 
the Gulf of Mexico is being filled up gradually by 
the millions of tons of sediment borne into it by the 
Mississippi River and its tributaries. The day will 
come when the great gulf w T ill not exist, and when 
what is now its bottom will be dry land, and cities 
will rise where now the w r aves beat. Forests are 
falling before the ax of the settlers ; rivers once 
broad and deep are dwindling to shallow creeks. The 
ocean is continually encroaching upon the land in 
many portions of the world, and the old coast-lines 
are melting away before the beating surf, while the 
habitations of mankind are being driven inland farther 
and farther. A coal-bed is most likely being formed 
at the present time in the heart of the Atlantic Ocean 
in that triangular space between the Azores, Canaries, 
and Cape de Verd Islands. When Columbus was 
crossing the Atlantic Ocean on his voyage of discov- 
ery he was astonished when, on the 19th of Septem- 
ber, 1492, he found himself in the midst of that great 
bank of sea- weed, the " Sea- weed meadow of Oviedo," 
as it has been called by sailors, or the Saragossa Sea, 
which has a varying breadth of not far from three 
hundred miles, and stretches through twenty-five de- 



THE STONE BOOK. 51 

grees of latitude, embracing an area of two hundred 
and sixty thousand square miles, equal to the whole of 
the Mississippi valley in extent, a huge floating gar- 
den in which countless myriads of animals find food 
and shelter. It is so thickly matted over with these 
weeds that vessels are retarded in their speed in pass- 
ing through it. When the companions of Columbus 
saw it they thought it marked the limits of navigation, 
and were alarmed. To the eve at a little distance it 
seems substantial enough to walk on. What becomes 
of the dead remains of that vast marine growth ? May 
it not even now be accumulating into deposits of a 
certain kind of coal, which the generations to come, 
in the far-off ages, may use when the bed of the Atlan- 
tic Ocean shall have become habitable by man ? 

If this does not turn into coal it at least shows us 
how the ancient coal-beds may have been formed. 
Great changes are going forward in this age, but 
there w r ere greater and doubtless more violent ones 
some tens of thousands of years ago, when the almighty 
Father was fitting up the earth for the home of his 
children. 

The earth every- where reveals the fact that there 
have been great convulsions in nature. The scientists 
tell us that when our planet was cooling off and tak- 
ing on its present form the nucleus, or core, shrank, 
and the crust which had formed on its outer surface, 
as the heat was radiated off into space, followed the 
shrinking mass within, and was consequently broken 
and contorted. When we examine it we behold 
everywhere what seems to be confusion ; but that 
which often appears to be disorder is the most per- 
fect order. We are taught that God is in history, 



52 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

and who doubts it ? Equally is the earth replete 
with evidences of an overruling Providence. 

God has as certainly put his signature on the very 
rocks in their deep beds as anywhere. The ripened 
grain-fields of our western prairies are the banners 
which wave over the dominion of the Eternal. How 
could this grain grow in our fields if it were not for 
the soil ? During the lapse of uncounted ages in the 
history of the earth rocks have been ground into soil, 
and soil has been recemented into rock, and to-day the 
same transformations are slowly and silently going on. 

" When the earth first cooled down from its pri- 
mal heat it had no soil, but must have been a mass 
of crystalline granite rocks and volcanic scoriae, inca- 
pable of supporting animal or vegetable life. When 
the vapors condensed upon the surface, then began 
the strife between fire and water which, under the 
mild forms we call weather, has never since ceased. 
Rains began to fall upon the mountains — the mere 
wrinkles produced by the contraction of the cooling 
crust ; streams flowed downward into the valleys, 
cracking the still hot rocks, whirling fragments along 
in their courses until they settled as gravel, sand, or 
fine powder to the bottom of quiet seas or were dis- 
solved in boiling wells. Then vegetation began to 
flourish, and after slow centuries had passed animal 
life appeared ; each department of organized existence 
in its own way adding to the list of terrestrial changes. 
From the very beginning atmospheric oxygen was 
omnipresent ; carbonic acid gas, too, began to act upon 
the rocks, and as the result of these solvents decom- 
posing, breaking up, and commingling, the course of 
operations thus carried on through long periods of 



THE STONE BOOK. 53 

continual action has given us the soil in its present char- 
acter and aspects." * Thus was the earth fitted up for 
man, to whom almost everything in nature points. 

In no one thing is the providence of God more 
clearly shown than in the creation of the soil. Some 
speculative philosophers have predicted that the time 
will come when the soil of the w r orld will be exhausted 
and the human race become extinct — " starved out." 
Such a prediction has no foundation in fact. God has 
made ample provision for his children. One foot in 
depth of a fairly good agricultural soil contains per 
acre 4,000 pounds of phosphoric acid ; 8,000 pounds 
of potash ; 16,000 pounds of nitrogen ; and lime, mag- 
nesia, soda, chlorine, sulphur, and silica to afford food 
for all the crops which these three elements can feed. 
After farmers, by careful and skillful cultivation, have 
exhausted all this great store of plant food in the up- 
permost foot of this soil, which will require several 
centuries, will the soil be exhausted ? Not at all. As 
the land is gradually changed into vegetable growth, 
and the surface is removed as farm crops, it gradually 
deepens, and the subsoil, which contains the very same 
elements, becomes fitted for plant food. And thus the 
imperishable nature of matter applies to the soil, which 
can never be exhausted during all the ages which 
are to come. All that mankind has to do is to use its 
arts under the instruction of science to develop this 
latent fertility, and to go on feeding the human race 
until the end, if an end ever shall come when the earth 
will no longer exist as a fit habitation for mankind. 

AVe have another illustration of this superintend- 
ing providence in the formation of coal, which means 

* Professor Samuel Johnsorj, Smithsonian Institution Lectures, 1859. 



54 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

more than a black carbonaceous matter in the earth. 
It was formed for man's use, and to-day constitutes 
not only an important article of commerce, but fur- 
nishes employment to thousands of men besides add- 
ing; to the world's wealth and comfort. Coal is of 
vegetable origin, but was formed from a vegetation 
differing in character, in abundance, and in rankness 
very widely from any thing we see upon the earth at 
the present day. Mr. Lyell, whose writings have 
usually been quoted with authority on such subjects, 
is of the opinion that, time sufficient being given, the 
forces now in operation are adequate to the produc- 
tion of all the changes which have taken place in the 
earth's crust. But it seems to the writer that one 
cannot look upon the geological formations presenting 
their immense strata, marked and scored with traces 
of the most terrible convulsions, without at once con- 
cluding that the forces which operated in past ages 
were vastly more violent than those of the present. 
Coal was formed when an atmosphere composed 
largely of carbonic acid surrounded the earth. That 
was the wonderful carboniferous period, for then it 
was that God was preparing, not only the air for our 
lungs, by extracting the poisonous carbonic acid, but 
as well the fuel to warm our dwellings and a force to 
propel our machinery. The great Father has not 
been parsimonious in bestowing his gifts upon his 
children. Long ago the elder Professor Hitchcock* 
estimated that in the United States there were 
225,000 square miles of coal area, which, averaging all 
the beds at a thickness of fifteen feet, would give 
us 1,061 cubic miles of coal. One cubic mile would 

* Geology of the Globe. 



THE STONE BOOK. 55 

furnish 7,000,000 tons annually for one thousand 
years. Since then new fields have been discovered 
in the West and South-west of great extent. This 
estimate of the learned professor may be a little fan- 
ciful, but one thing is certain — even though a hundred 
million tons were mined each year the supply would 
last for a^es. 

Much has been said about the possible dearth of 
coal in England. It has been estimated that in the 
South Staffordshire and Shropshire districts there are 
10,000,000,000 tons of coal existing at workable 
depths beyond the present limits. Then there are 
2,494,000,000 tons in the present Warwickshire coal- 
fields, and 1,760,000,000 tons in the Leicester fields ; 
surely the dearth is not imminent. As a source of 
wealth the coal-mines of the world greatly exceed 
the gold-mines. In them the children of men have 
abundant evidence of the goodness of God, who cared 
for us even before the foundations of the world were 
laid. 

The earth may have at one time floated in space as 
a vast cloud of fire-mist, which through uncounted 
ages slowly condensed into a fluid mass, with a tem- 
perature far beyond our conception ; or it may have 
been a fragment of cosmic matter hurled by some 
vast sun-cataclysm into space, adjusting itself to or- 
bital movements under the law which God ordained 
to govern the spheres ; or it may have been evolved 
in some mysterious manner out of God himself, the 
Author of all things, who " in the beginning created 
the heavens and the earth ; " but one thing we know, 
it does exist as a planet in space, it is our home, and 
was fitted up for the habitation of mankind. We can 



56 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

hardly expect ever to know just how this world- 
house was prepared ; we must be willing not to know 
some things at present. It is a source of consolation, 
however, to know that eternity is before us, in which 
we may learn what is now hidden beneath a veil of 
mystery. Nevertheless, it is. lawful for us to attempt 
to uncover even these sublime mysteries. Man is not 
a mere barnacle, clinging to the rocks that form the 
sea-wall which hems in his life, but an intelligent 
student persistently bending over the leafy tablets of 
Nature, and deciphering her strange hieroglyphics ; 
he is a patient sculptor, chiseling out of these same 
rocks forms of imperishable beauty. It is more than 
poetry, then, to say that the earth's crust is a book 
written by the finger of God. Rock has been piled 
on rock, and ledge upon ledge, not in confusion, but 
in the most perfect order, an order that implies man ; 
for though this earth-crust is composed of numerous 
formations, from garden soil to granite, and is fifty 
or sixty miles in thickness, yet every layer or stratum 
comes to the surface somewhere. The granites, and 
some other rocks needed in the construction of our 
great buildings which are intended to stand for ages, 
have been formed under heat and pressure, and are 
consequently the more durable. What use would 
they be to us if they were lying miles below us in 
the earth's deep bed ? The coal of which we have 
spoken when in place is about ten thousand feet 
beneath the surface of the earth. If God had not 
made provision for it man never could have seen it. 
But he has placed all these minerals within reach 
of his children by means of fire and flood and 
quaking earth. These great convulsions of nature 



THE STONE B OK. 57 

are indeed terrible visitations, but they show us the 
benevolence as well as the power of the Infinite 
One. It is the mission of the human mind to search 
out the secrets of nature ; but to all things there 
is a limit, and because we are unable to compre- 
hend all that is written in this stony volume it illy 
becomes us to say with the " fool," " There is no 
God." Professor M. F. Maury has eloquently said : * 
" To one who has never studied the mechanism of a 
watch, its mainspring, or the balance-wheel, is a mere 
piece of metal. He may have looked at the face of 
the watch, and while he admires the motion of its 
hands, and the time it keeps, he may have wondered 
in idle amazement as to the character of the machin- 
ery which is concealed within. Take it to pieces and 
show him each part separately, he will recognize 
neither design nor adaptation, nor relation between 
them ; but put them together, set them to work, 
point to the offices of each wheel, spring, and cog, 
explain their movements, and then show him the re- 
sult ; now he perceives- that it is all one design ; that 
notwithstanding the number of parts, their diverse 
forms, and various offices, and the agents concerned 
the whole piece is of one thought — the expression of 
one idea. He now rightly concludes that when the 
mainspring was fashioned and tempered its relation 
to all the other parts must have been considered ; 
that the cogs on this wheel are cut and adapted to 
the ratchet on that, and his final conclusion will be 
that such a piece of mechanism could not have been 
produced by chance, for the adaptation of the parts 
is such as to show it to be according to design and 
* Physical Geography of the Sea. 



58 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

obedient to the will of one intelligence. So, too, 
when he looks out upon the face of this beautiful 
world, he admires its lovely scenery, but his admira- 
tion can never grow into adoration, unless he will 
take the trouble to look behind and study in some of 
its details at least the exquisite system of machinery 
by which such beautiful results are brought about." 

It is not irreverent to speak of God as a great me- 
chanic. The artisan goes to his shop to push the 
plane or strike the heated metal, and sometimes is 
tempted to murmur at his toilsome lot and humble 
life. But let him cast his eye upward toward the 
stars and know that God is a great mechanic — we 
speak reverently — and by his wisdom and power has 
set the whole universe into motion. Planets and 
systems alike are traveling through their orbits in the 
deep spaces of the universe. 

Look up into the face of thy Father, put thy hand 
into his hand, and he will surely lead thee aright. 
The great Teacher said, " My Father worketh hith- 
erto, and I work." Labor is man's great function. 
The earth and the atmosphere are his laboratory. 
With spade and plow, with mining shaft and furnace 
and forge ; with fire and steam, amidst the noise of 
swift and bright machinery, and abroad in the silent 
fields beneath the roofing sky, man was made to be 
ever a worker, ever experimenting. He is nothing, 
he can be nothing, fulfill nothing, without work. 

The word science is not a term which needs to give 
any one alarm ; it is only the window through which 
we look at objects of nature. We study the laws of 
mind, and call our studies metaphysics ; we study 
the elements about us, and call our studies chemistry ; 



THE STONE BOOK. 59 

we study the stars, and we have astronomy ; we study 
the earth, and call it geology. But alas ! how little 
we know to-day, after all these years of observation, 
reflection, and investigation, compared with what 
there is to learn ! Nature is only partially under- 
stood by the wisest of men. The student of nature 
is like a traveler climbing the sloping sides of a 
mountain with its snow-mantled peak far above and 
beyond him. At the base, as he girds himself for the 
ascent, and takes up his alpenstock, he looks out 
and his eye takes in a beautiful but limited landscape, 
dotted all over with peaceful habitations of men ; but 
as he ascends, the eye ever takes in a wider sweep of 
landscape. Onward lingoes, higher and still higher, 
and the landscape widens more and more. At last 
he sets his foot on the loftiest crest, the pico del 
fraile, and the landscape is lost in the horizon which 
encircles him in dim and hazy outline. From that 
mountain summit he is fairly entranced by the sight 
of the magnificent distances which spread out before 
him, and is awed into silence and humbled into the 
dust. So is it with God's universe : in youth we are 
liable to be proud of our acquisitions and to become 
boastful of what we know ; but let us climb higher 
up the mountain-side of life, and we seem to know 
less and less. Nay, but we do know more, only that 
the field has so wonderfully widened that we are 
lost, and seemingly dwarfed into nothingness. 

The men who have delved deepest into nature, 
who have gone out farthest along the lines of thought, 
are they of the least pretension and of the most hum- 
ble and reverent spirit. All these studies lead to 
God, who is the author of all the principles which 



00 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL 7 WRIT. 

enter into life. This stone book, the earth, teaches ns 
of God, his self, his power, his wisdom, and his be- 
nevolence. He who cannot see a plan, a purpose, 
a means to an end in the unfoldings of this rocky 
scroll of the long-gone ages gives evidence either of 
a bad heart or an inability to reason correctly ; but 
let us be charitable. 



FA CT AND FICTION IN HUMAN LIFE. 61 



CHAPTER Y. 

FACT and fiction in human life. 

¥E are perfectly well aware of the fact that the 
title of this book may, at least to a few people, 
seem objectionable; for with some the very idea of 
writing about fiction in Holy Writ would seem to 
border on the irreverent. But in the light of the 
foregoing chapters in our opinion there is entire jus- 
tification in the selection of title. 

In an age of ignorance, or among a people who are 
ignorant, religious thought, like all other thought, is 
crude. There are two extremes which it is alike de- 
sirable to avoid — a religiousness running into down- 
right superstition on the one hand, and on the other 
an irreligiousness that runs into positive rationalism. 
We scarcely know which of the two is most to be 
shunned. The author thinks that he dealt justly with 
the Scriptures when he said in a previous chapter that 
the Bible is part human and part divine. It might 
be better to say divine, with some mixture of the hu- 
man. No thoughtful person,, however orthodox, will 
deny the existence of at least a small human element 
in the sacred book. 

The Church has always been, and is yet, rightfully 
jealous of Scripture. The ark is very sacred, and so 
we do not wish to touch any part of it with violent 
hands or to utter a word that would make it any less 
sacred in its claims. And yet to ignore reason in the 



62 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

rendering of Scripture — to say, as we have heard a man 
say, that if the Bible declared that Jonah swallowed 
the whale he should believe it, is to be irreverent in 
another way ; to cast down and trample under foot 
the precious pearl of reason which God has given to 
us, to be superstitious, and to convert the Bible into 
a mere fetich. 

The reader may call to mind the story of the re- 
turned sailor-boy who, when questioned by his vener- 
able grandmother as to what he had seen in his wan- 
derings, told her of fish which could fly in the air 
almost like birds, and would sometimes actually fall 
on the ship's deck. This, of course, called clown upon 
him her matronly rebuke. The idea of a fish flying ! 
But the cunning boy made up his mind to tell her 
something which he knew she would believe, and so 
related to her that when they w T ere fishing one day 
in the Red Sea they drew in their net, and lo ! what 
should it contain but a beautiful wheel covered with 
gold and set with diamonds ! This she did not doubt, 
for u Pharaoh and his host" had been overthrown in 
the Red Sea, and this w r as, of course, one of his chariot- 
wheels. The story illustrates the fact that some peo- 
ple will accept and believe the most contradictory and 
impossible things in life and yet reject the plainest 
truths of science. There are skeptical people who dis- 
credit Bible teachings and yet believe the various 
superstitions of the ignorant world. One of the ends 
held in view by the author in the preparation of this 
book is to run parallels between the remarkable state- 
ments made in the Bible and the equally remarkable 
things recorded outside of the Bible in nature and 
human life. If some things in this divine book are, 



FA GT AND FICTION IN HUMAN LIFE. 63 

as is sometimes claimed, too great a strain on human 
credence, there are some tilings in the natural world 
and in the history of humanity very marvelous, but 
we believe them, for they come within our observation 
and are undeniable ; but had they been written in 
Genesis or John, and so placed beyond the world's 
present experience, they would be called myths, 
fables, legends, and declared to be contrary to reason. 

Among the superstitions which have governed peo- 
ple some are quite amusing. For instance, one in 
which it is declared to be " unlucky to weigh a new- 
born child, for if you doit will probably die." 

It is believed by many, even to this day, that cats 
suck the breath of infants when they are asleep in 
their cribs ; and because of this old superstition many 
a poor kitty has been ousted from a warm nest at the 
baby's feet by a ruthless nurse. Again this : " When 
children first leave their mother's room they must go 
up-stairs before they go down-stairs, or they will never 
rise in the world." Most of us must have been carried 
down-stairs first. " If a grave is opened on Sunday 
another one will be dug during the week." Quite 
likely. " If a looking-glass is broken there will be a 
death in the house within a year." " If you break 
two things in succession you will break a third ;" and 
so the credulous servant deliberately breaks the third, 
selecting something which is of no value, and thus 
breaks the spell. " It is very lucky to put on any 
article of dress wrong side out, but if you wish the 
omen to hold good you must continue to wear the 
reversed portion of your attire in that condition until 
the regular time comes for changing it ; otherwise you 
will have no luck." 



64 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

It was believed by these same superstitious people 
that ague could be cured by swallowing spiders and 
their webs. "When these objects were put into goose- 
quills and hung around the neck it was considered to 
be a sure cure for the malady. It was generally be- 
lieved by people living on the sea-coast that the going 
out and coming in of the tides had an effect for good 
or evil upon the sick. It will be remembered that 
Dickens tells us that "Barkis lingered in his dying 
until the turn of the tide. When the tide was going 
out Barkis went out with it." 

" Water in the dinner-pot evaporates more rapidly 
when the tide is low." " It is unluckv to eat fish from 
the head downward ; it drives away the fish from the 
shores." " To tell the stage of the tide without going 
to the beach look into a cat's eyes ; the pupil of every 
intelligent cat's eye is elongated when the tide is at 
the flood." " Never count a catch of fish until the 
day's work or sport is done ; otherwise the sport is 
spoiled." And so on ad nauseum. 

It is not alone among the people who live on the 
sea-coast that superstitions are believed. Not very 
long ago the author was in the company of a number 
of people gathered to witness a very common but very 
interesting ceremony in which as a clergyman he had 
some part. It was a very genteel sort of place, and 
the people were all- members of what the world calls 
"good society," which means, first, that they were 
well-dressed, and, in the second place, were tolerably 
well educated. With some dress comes first, culture 
and piety afterward. At one of the tables it happened 
that there were thirteen seats, and after all had taken 
their places and thanks had been returned one of the 



FA CT AND FICTION IN HUMAN LIFE 65 

guests — a young lady of eighteen — arose quickly and 
left the table, remarking that she would not under 
any consideration be one of a party of thirteen at a 
dinner-table. At first we were quite amused, then 
shocked, and afterward disgusted, to think that in 
this age of high schools, newspapers, and science any 
one pretending to have even ordinary intelligence 
should be guilty of such great folly as to be governed 
by the merest superstition. But there are superstitious 
people almost every-where, even in tolerably well-cul- 
tivated communities. There are superstitious no- 
tions in the minds of people even where we would 
least expect to meet them. They constitute a curious 
study, and to understand them is to possess the key 
to a great many wrongs which have cursed humanity 
in all ao-es. 

CT 

There are some superstitious beliefs, as has been 
said, that are only amusing, while some others have 
been deadly in their effects on life. Some of them 
have led to the severest persecutions. Men, women, 
and even innocent children have been tortured and 
put to death because of their supposed complicity 
with evil spirits. But that day has passed away, let 
us hope, forever. Science and reason have dispelled 
from human society some of the dreadful things 
which once hung like a dark cloud over the world. 
Let us thank God for this. 

Mr. Leckey, in his work on Rationalism in Europe^ 
draws this picture of the horrors of witchcraft : 

" The legislators of almost every land enacted laws 
for its punishment. Acute judges, w r hose lives were 
spent in sifting evidence, investigated the question 
on countless occasions and condemned the accused. 



66 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

Tens of thousands of victims perished by the most 
agonizing and protracted torments, without exciting 
the faintest compassion ; and as they were for the 
most part extremely ignorant, extremely poor, secta- 
rianism and avarice had but little influence on the 
subject. Nations that were completely separated by 
position, by interest, and by character on this one ques- 
tion were a unit. In almost every province of Ger- 
many, but especially in those where clerical influence 
predominated, the persecution raged with a fearful 
intensitv. Seven thousand victims are said to have 
perished at Treves, six hundred by a single bishop at 
Bamberg, and eight hundred in a single year in the 
bishopric of Wurzburg. In France decrees were 
passed on the subject by the parliaments of Paris, 
Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rheims, Rouen, Dijon, and 
Rennes, and they were all followed by a harvest of 
blood. At Toulouse, the seat of the Inquisition, four 
hundred persons perished for sorcery at a single exe- 
cution, and fifty at Douay in a single year. Remy, a 
judge at Nancy, boasted that he had put to death 
eight hundred witches in sixteen years. The execu- 
tions that took place at Paris in a few months were, 
in the emphatic words of an old writer, 'almost infi- 
nite. 5 The fugitives who escaped to Spain were there 
seized and burned by the Inquisition. In that country 
the persecution spread to the smallest towns, and the 
belief was so deeply rooted in the popular mind that 
a sorcerer was burned as late as 17S0. In Italy a 
thousand persons were executed in a single year in 
the province of Como. The same scenes w^ere en- 
acted in the wild valleys of Switzerland and Savoy. 
And these are only a few of the more salient events in 



FACT AND FICTION IN HUMAN LIFE. 67 

that long series of persecutions which extended over 
almost every country and continued for centuries 
with unabated fury. ... It spread with Puritanism 
into the New World, and the executions in Massachu- 
setts form one of the darkest pages in the history of 
America." 

Every age and every nation has had its supersti- 
tions, but not all so dreadful as those just recited. 
Dr. Puss tells the story of a Hungarian officer who 
w T as severely, though by no means fatally, wounded 
in the field of Sadowa. He was fast bleeding to 
death, however, when the surgeon came to him, but 
might have been saved had he not obstinately refused 
all aid. The surgeon noticed that he held something 
very tightly in his hand which he pressed convul- 
sively to his breast. Presently he began to tremble 
violently, and crying out, "It has done me no good!" 
threw away a piece of paper and the next moment 
expired. The paper was found to be a talisman, 
bearing some written characters which were quite 
unintelligible. The poor fellow trusted in its super- 
natural power until aid by natural means was out 
of the question, and then cast it away with a pang of 
despair. Many a similar agonizing discovery was 
made during the war of 1870-71, too late for the 
learner to profit by the experience. After the battle 
of AVoerth, in particular, a great number of talismans, 
charms, and the like were picked up close to the 
corpses of those who had clung to them until in their 
last agony they had lost faith in their healing virtue 
and had flung them away. It must not be supposed, 
however, that the German soldiers as a class are given 
to this kind of superstition. It was found, on inves- 



68 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLT WRIT. 

ligation, that there was a close relation between edu- 
cation and the existence of such beliefs. The prov- 
inces which were in the lowest state as regards edu- 
cation gave the largest contingent of those who were 
thus credulous. Talismans, charms, letters of exemp- 
tion, etc., were found in the largest proportion among 
recruits from the Polish provinces, and in those prov- 
inces education is at the lowest point. 

From time immemorial it has been believed that 
horseshoes keep away evil spirits. Even Lord Nel- 
son had a horseshoe nailed to the mast of his flagship. 
It is maintained that the origin of this belief goes 
back to the old Scandinavian mythology. The horse- 
shoe was supposed to be sacred to Odin or Woden, as 
the Anglo-Saxons call him, and it was especially 
lucky to find one on Wednesday. Odin was consid- 
ered to be the destroyer of giants, witches, and all 
powers of evil, and so perhaps the horseshoe came 
to be considered as a protector against witches. It is 
claimed that this superstition is only found among 
the descendants of the Saxon and Scandinavian 
nations. Some antiquarians assert that the practice 
of nailing horseshoes to thresholds resembles that of 
driving nails into the walls of cottages among the 
Romans, which they believed to be an antidote against 
the plague. For this purpose L. Manlius, A. U. C. 
390, was named " Dictator to Drive the Nail." Apart 
from this old belief in the exorcising virtue of cold 
iron the horseshoe appealed to superstition in an 
astrological age as being moon-shaped. The Greek 
name for it has reference to its shape. The sickle for 
this reason shared its virtue. 

Many superstitions have vexed the world, others 



FA CT AND FICTION IN HUMAN LIFE. 69 

have amused it, while a beautiful romance lias gathered 
about some of them. Among the ancient Greeks and 
Romans it was a common custom for the bridegroom 
to give his bride on their wedding-day a considerable 
sum of money for the purchase of her person. From 
this usage, no doubt, has come the modern custom of 
making wedding-presents, under which so many peo- 
ple groan. The ancient Saxons gave a betrothal 
ring or other gift, which was called a " wed," and 
from this we have named one of the days of our 
week — Wednesday. Now we throw an old shoe 
after the married couple. This custom, we suppose, 
came from our stern forefathers, who ordained that 
the bridegroom should tap his new-made wife on the 
head with his shoe as a token of her submission to 
her lord. 

There are a great many superstitions about the sup- 
posed effect of the moon upon the weather, etc. 
There is a very prevalent belief in some sections that 
the general condition of the atmosphere throughout 
the world during any lunation depends on whether 
the moon changed before or after midnight ! You 
are told that you must not kill a pig in the wane of 
the moon, for if you do the meat w T ill shrink in the 
cooking. Often has poor piggy's death been delayed 
or hastened so as to happen during the moon's in- 
crease. This same luminary has been an object of 
worship in some lands, and even yet in some portions 
of Europe many persons will courtesy to the new 
moon on its first appearance, and at the same time 
turn over the money in their pockets, if they have 
any, for luck. Then, again, you are told that you 
must not look at the new moon for the first time 



70 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

through glass ; it is unlucky. And if the new moon 
happens on a Saturday the weather will be bad for a 
month to come. Another weather-guide connected 
with the moon is that to see the old moon "in the 
arms of the new," as it is expressed, is reckoned a 
sign of bad weather. So also the turning up of the 
horns of the new moon has its meaning. In this 
position it is supposed to retain the water which is 
imagined to be in it, and which will spill out if the 
horns were turned down. There are many people 
who when they see the streaks of light caused by the 
sun shining through broken clouds believe them to 
be veritable pipes reaching into the sea, or some- 
where else, and through which water is drawn up into 
the clouds, ready to be sent dowm in rain-showers. 
Truth is sometimes contained in popular errors, as 
gold is hid in quartz rock. These streaks in the 
sky, while they are not real pipes, are yet visible 
signs of the sun's action, showing that evaporation is 
constantly going pn over earth and sea, by means of 
which the rains and snows are formed. It would be 
a difficult task to report all the superstitions and unsci- 
entific notions so often cherished concerning the 
moon's influence on life in general, and inasmuch 
as they are so harmless it may be as well to let them 
alone. In time they will die a natural death. That 
the " lesser light" of Moses does exert some influence 
on the earth is not questioned. But Luna has legiti- 
mate work to do, and should not be charged with too 
many trivial affairs. It is not at all likely that she 
exerts a particle of influence on the weather, or the 
killing of pigs or poultry, or over the planting of 
beans, cucumbers, turnips, etc. The moon is a sec- 



FA CT AND FICTION IN HUMAN LIFE. 71 

ondary planet two hundred and forty thousand miles 
away from us. She is constantly changing in appear- 
ance, and yet she never changes a particle. She does 
exert some attractive power on the ocean, and in fact 
helps to cause the tidal waves ; but she does not con- 
cern herself a rush about the aspiring youth who 
turns over the few nickels in his pocket for luck 
when he happens to first get a sight of the new moon. 

Another popular superstition is that concerning 
Friday, which day has been almost universally con- 
sidered a day of ill omen. At a time when supersti- 
tion had full sway almost every-where, say about two 
hundred years ago, it was not to be wondered at that 
such notions should have gained currency; but now 
they seem puerile, and ought, like other childish 
things, to be put away. Like the young lady who 
would not sit at a table of thirteen, so there are even 
in this matter-of-fact age some w r ho would hesitate 
to begin any sort of work of importance on a day so 
inauspicious as Friday. Sailors, as a class, are pro- 
verbially superstitious, and many a brave tar whose 
heart would not quail before the fury of the wildest 
storm would never think of leaving port on Friday 
under any consideration. His cheek would blanch at 
the very thought of binding a sail on that day, a day 
fraught in his imagination with so much evil. 

Friday has played rather an important part in the 
history of our own country especially, and it serves 
somew T hat to show how very unreasoning is the super- 
stition of so many concerning it. " Let us remember 
that it was on Friday, August 3, 1492, that Columbus 
sailed from Palos in Spain in search of the New 7 World. 
On Friday, October 12, of the same year, he first 



72 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

sighted the Bahama Islands, the door-way to the 
American continent. On that same much-dreaded 
Friday, January 4, 1493, he sailed on his return to 
Spain ; and surely no evil overtook him, for if it had 
the results of his explorations never would have been 
known. On Friday, March 15, 1493, he arrived back 
at Palos in safety. On Friday, November 22, 1493, 
he arrived at Hispaniola in his second voyage to 
America. On Friday, June 13, 1494, he discovered 
the main continent of America. Friday, March 5, 
1496, was the day on which Henry VII. of England 
gave to John Cabot his commission which led to the 
discovery of the northern part of the American con- 
tinent. On Friday, September 7, 1565, Melendez 
founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest settlement 
in this country by more than forty years. On Friday, 
November 10, 1620, the Mayflower, with the pilgrims 
on board, made the harbor of Provincetown, and on 
the same day they signed the compact which laid the 
foundation of the American Republic. On Friday, De- 
cember 22, 1620, the final landing of the pilgrims took 
place on Plymouth Rock. Our great Washington was 
born on Friday, February 22, 1732. The surrender of 
Saratoga by the British occurred on Friday, October 7, 
1777, which led France to declare herself in favor of 
the American colonies. It was on Friday, Septem- 
ber 22, 1780, that the treason of Benedict Arnold was 
brought to light, which saved the cause of the Amer- 
icans from ruin. The final surrender of the British 
army under Lord Cornwallis took place at Yorktown, 
Ya., on Friday, October 9, 1781, at which time the 
American army was victorious over a then haughty 
and powerful foe." Rather unlucky for Cornwallis, we 



FACT AND FICTION IN HUMAN LIFE. 73 

will admit. And so one might go on at almost any 
length to disprove by facts the folly of the supersti- 
tion about Friday. And yet there are some people 
silly enough to believe that Friday is an unlucky day. 

Christian people are now and always have been 
censured and criticised by skeptics for their belief in 
the Bible. And yet their faith has not been a blind, 
unreasoning credence, but a rational one. This can- 
not be said of the beliefs of the world. As an illus- 
tration of what has been believed we will relate this 
curious story concerning a species of the cocoanut 
once called the " nut of Solomon," or the " fruit of 
the tree of Solomon." 

During the Middle Ages the countries of the east- 
ern hemisphere were enveloped in a great many 
mysteries and superstitions. Certain drugs and chem- 
icals were supposed to possess miraculous properties, 
and almost any fable, no matter how ridiculous, was 
readily accepted by the common people as the truth. 
Just then the cocoanut came into great demand. The 
rulers of the East held it in such high esteem that it 
seldom found its way into Europe. It was exceed- 
ingly rare, and was declared to possess curative proper- 
ties of such extraordinary potency that Christians and 
Mussulmans vied with each other in lauding it. Then 
it was that it was named the "nut of Solomon." 
These nuts were occasionally found floating at sea or 
wafted by the waves to the Coromandel coast and the 
Maldive Islands. But these occurrences were so rare 
that the fruit found was estimated at an incredible 
price. Various theories sprung up concerning this 
strange nut. By some it was thought to be a sub- 
marine production, and human imagination at once 



74 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

ascribed to it the most wonderful virtues. The story 
of the prices paid for these nuts can scarcely be cred- 
ited. One of the Indian monarchs, we are informed, 
sold one nut for which w T as paid as the price a ship and 
her cargo. The Emperor Rudolph offered four thou- 
sand florins for one of these wonderful nuts, and his 
offer was refused. Two thousand dollars was no un- 
common price for a single cocoanut. 

Time is a great revelator as w T ell as healer. Men 
began to think, and knowledge increased ; consequently 
the " nut of Solomon " began to suffer in its reputa- 
tion as a curative agent. Nevertheless it still con- 
tinued to be considered a great curiosity, and in the 
far East retained some of its supposed medical virtues 
and commanded a high price, though that price came 
down and the nuts came to have a value corresponding 
with their size. A small one would bring about one 
hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars, while a 
large one would be worth five hundred dollars. Some 
extraordinary nuts in point of size w r ould bring as 
high as seven hundred dollars. Think of it ! For two 
hundred years this nut was held in such high esteem 
that ships w T ere fitted out to search for it in distant 
seas, very much as men are now hunting for the 
North Pole. 

The " nut of Solomon " at once became famous as 
a remedy for poison. In those days poisoning was 
the crime of the great, and any thing that would prove 
an antidote for poison in the human system would 
command any price. Cups w^ere constructed out of it 
for drinking purposes, for it was believed that even 
drinking water out of one of them would effectually 
cure certain maladies. 



FA GT AND FICTION IN HUMAN LIFE. 75 

The history of the nut, as it was told, helped to keep 
in mind the delusion. The stories were very fanciful, 
but they were believed. One was that there was but 
one tree in the w r orld that produced it, that the roots 
of this rare tree were fixed at the bottom of the 
Indian Ocean so far down that no fathom-line could 
ever reach them, but that its branches, rising high 
above the placid waters, flourished in the bright sun- 
shine, serene sky, and pure air of heaven. So when 
the nuts matured they fell into the sea and were 
wafted by winds and waves until they were cast upon 
some distant shore to be picked up by man. 

The tidings of this wonderful discovery in time 
reached Europe. The Portuguese fitted out a vessel 
which sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and 
entered the Indian Ocean for the purpose of finding 
some of these wonderful nuts of the tree of Solomon ; 
but they were unsuccessful. Still the story spread, 
and the English and Dutch followed in the path of 
the Portuguese and made their way into the same sea, 
and with great energy carried their enterprise forward, 
hoping to find the source of the wonderful nut ; but 
they, too, failed. 

A French naval officer, whose name was Picault, 
was sent to explore the cluster of islands.known as the 
Seychelles. He was a careful navigator, and discovered 
some islands formerly unknown. One of these he 
named Palmiers, on account of the abundance and 
beauty of the palm-trees which grew upon it. Then 
in 1768 a subsequent governor of the same island 
sent out another expedition for a similar purpose. 
Barre, the hydrographer, on landing upon Palmiers, 
at once discovered that the palms from which the 



76 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

island had been named a quarter of a century before 
produced the famous and long sought-for " cocoanut 
of the sea " — the " fruit of the tree of Solomon." 
The explorers returned home to the Isle of France, 
fitted out a vessel, and sailed for Paimiers and loaded 
it with cocoanuts. Then they set sail for the East, 
landing at Calcutta, where the vessel arrived with her 
cargo in 1770. What was the astonishment among 
the people that thronged about the ship when to their 
eager inquiries they were informed that the cargo 
consisted wholly of the invaluable " fruit of the tree 
of Solomon." They could scarcely believe the evidence 
of their own eyes, as upon opening the hatchway of 
the ship it was found to be actually filled with the 
precious commodity. Rare no longer, precious no 
more ! Down went the price, and persons who had 
paid fabulous sums for a single nut were ruined. The 
French captain expected to make a fortune out of his 
cargo, but failed. Had he been financially shrewd he 
would have sold them one at a time and made a 
fortune. Cocoanuts were entirely too plenty. The 
mystery was solved, the secret was told, the spell was 
broken ! An English mercantile house landed an- 
other cargo the following summer at Bombay, thus 
completely solving the mystery of the remarkable nut 
and reducing the price to zero. 



FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 77 



CHAPTER VI. 

FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

THERE is a right way and a wrong way to read 
the Bible. The wrong way is to approach it with 
a spirit of irreverence and with undue criticism, de- 
manding of it that which it is not pledged to give. 
The right way is to approach it precisely as we would 
any other book worth reading, as earnest seekers after 
the truth. 

If it were a book limited in its scope, treating of a 
single topic only, and doing that superficially, like so 
many human productions, it would not command the 
thought of the world as it does and has done for 
ages. The facts taught by the Scriptures, such as the 
existence of God, an overruling Providence, sin, re- 
demption, and so on, need no defense or argument 
here. 

But what is fiction ? It has been defined as the act 
of feigning, inventing, or imagining. A story may be 
related or written in which the imagination has been 
drawn upon for the facts ; facts, real or supposed, con- 
stitute the base of any story. Fiction is sometimes 
used to deceive, but is more frequently employed as 
a convenient method of passing rapidly over what is 
not disputed, or of reaching points which are easily 
apprehended. 

Fiction differs materiallv from fabrication ; the lat- 
ter is always intended to deceive ; but the two sus- 



78 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

tain a close relation to each other. We know that 
one of the grandest gifts of God to man is this power 
of imagination. A volume could not tell of all its 
benefits. Fiction, as distinguished from fabrication, 
has its legitimate use in both literature and life. It 
narrows the circle of description and enables one to 
compass in a shorter way a wide field of thought; 
and so it may be called a species of literary crystalliza- 
tion. By means of it instruction is often rendered 
more palatable than it otherwise might be by a coat- 
ing of figures and strophes. The conveyance of moral 
teaching by means of the fable used so freely in for- 
mer ages is of this nature inasmuch as it puts truth 
in a pleasant garb, while from the bare presentation 
of it the mind might turn away in indifference or 
disgust. Of this we have abundant biblical precedent. 
There is fiction in the Bible. The parables, whether 
in the Old Testament or the New, are fiction. The 
great Teacher used parables for the reason that the 
" common people " who " heard him gladly " would not 
have been able to comprehend abstruse reasoning ; 
but they could understand a story. A child always 
relishes a simple story. These children of a larger 
growth feasted on the stories — the parables related by 
our Saviour. Thus he made use of fiction in the 
conveyance of instruction on all the subjects which he 
brought before their minds. 

Take, for instance, the beautiful parables of the 
" talents," the "ten virgins," the "fig-tree," or the 
" grain of mustard-seed." How else could the Master 
have presented the truth so forcibly to the simple- 
minded people about him as in this way ? The Bible 
is a book that chronicles great facts which constitute 



FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 79 

the bed-rock of all its moral teachings. We need not 
name them or attempt their classification in full. But 
it is a fact that God is, and that he did create all 
tilings. He is not a mere force or law in nature, 
which men call God ; but a personal Deity who up- 
holds all things ; a wise, holy, and benevolent Being 
who rules in the heavens and in the earth. 

Is there such a God ? The Christian answers, Yes. 
The whole world of mankind says in one speech or 
another, " I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
Maker of heaven and earth." We have never seen 
him; "no man hath seen God at any time." And 
yet it has been stated that certain men of old " saw 
God face to face." But how ? It is answered : " The 
only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the 
Father, he hath declared him." We have never 
heard his voice, and yet we believe in this supreme 
God. Among the Egyptians he was called Kneph; 
among the Persians, Zeruane Akerene ; among the 
Hindus, Para Brahma ; among the Phenicians, Greeks, 
and Romans he was called Chronos, or Saturn, who 
was held to be the absolute in the fathomless immensity 
of time. Among the Scandinavians he was known as 
Surtur. Thus through the literature of all the nations 
there are found traces of the supreme God. In 
Paul's day, upon Mars' hill, there was one altar bear- 
ing the inscription, " To the Unknown God." Was 
not this altar erected to the God who could not be 
represented, whose mysterious depth of being could 
not belaid open to the human understanding, and there- 
fore must ever be "The Unknown ?" 

It is impossible for the finite to comprehend the 
Infinite ; but we may apprehend him. There are two 



80 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

circles, one not larger than the ring on a lady's finger ; 
the other may have a diameter of leagues, and yet 
the smaller may touch the larger, and a line drawn 
through the center of the one may pass through the 
center of the other. They have something in com- 
mon. Thus may we touch God as we sing with 
Faber : 

" Great God, our lowliness takes heart 

Beneath the shadow of thy state ; 
The only comfort of our littleness 

Is that thou art so great. 

" Then on thy grandeur I will lay me down ; 

Already life is heaven for me ; 
No cradled child more softly lies than I; 

Come soon, Eternity ! " 

Whoever will attempt to interpret nature without 
recognizing God will find himself involved in inex- 
tricable mazes. The first chapter in Genesis may be, 
as some claim, a grand anthem of creation, or a scenic 
representation — a panorama passing before the eyes of 
Moses the Seer ; or it may be history condensing into 
a few lines the processes of world-building, enabling 
us to read in a few moments an epitome of the history 
of cycles of creative energy. 

One thing is sure, the heavens do exist, and God 
created them. Does any one ask, When? How? 
Who knows ? It does not matter much to us now. 
We can study the philosophy of creation in the con- 
stant unfolding of science, or wait until we reach 
the immortal state, where our vision will be clearer 
and our capacity larger. There are some more impor- 
tant subjects to contemplate at present. 

Yet no harm need come from attempting the solu- 



FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 81 

tion of the problems of life and being; and whatever 
view we take, whether that of La Place or the sim- 
plest interpretation of the most unlettered and unphil- 
osophic plebeian, our highest spiritual and moral good 
do not hinge on a correct understanding of incompre- 
hensible mysteries. On the other hand, some good 
may come from the attempt ; it may teach us our 
littleness, and thus not only humble the haughty 
spirit of man but create in him a longing desire to 
reach a perfect state, where we shall see as we are seen 
and know as we are known. 

The creation of the human race is another great 
fact. We accept the Bible statement of the origin 
of our species as more dignified and reasonable than 
any other account given by man. The earth was pre- 
pared for man's coming, and every thing pointed to 
him. He, too, began to be ; there was a time when 
he was not. All agree in this. But how did he come 
into existence? Did nature in some , accidental way 
work out this superior being and endow him w r ith the 
power of reason ? If so, why did not these atoms and 
molecules about which the materialists talk so glibly 
come together ages before ? Why did they move so 
slowly ? Why waste themselves on infusoria, tadpoles, 
and lizards through countless eons of time, when man, 
the monarch, was so much needed? Can it be that 
George Washington and Julius Csesar were -.only de- 
veloped monads? A noted writer, and a preacher at 
that, stated in a sermon recently that according to Moses 
" man is the child of a clod," while science affirms that 
he is the "child of an ape;" and he would just as 
soon be the child of an ape as the child of a clod, 

The statement only shows the tendency of some 
6 



82 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

minds to run in eccentric grooves, as well as to re- 
pudiate facts in the Bible simply because they are in 
the Bible. 

We all believe in development, in a qualified sense. 
No doubt the life-processes of past ages have worked 
out some very remarkable changes. Here is one out 
of many which serves to illustrate what we mean: 
On the French and Italian shores of the Mediterra- 
nean grows a wild and neglected grass known by the 
name of segilops. The seeds of that wild grass were 
taken up and transplanted into new fields in remote 
parts of the earth, where it was fed by a new soil, and 
after a few years was changed over into the perfect 
and productive wheat which enters so largely into our 
industrial and commercial life. From similar wild 
weeds have come our oats, barley, corn, and other 
valuable grains. The nutritive potato of to-day is 
but the cultivated bitter root which was indigenous 
to some of the w r ild mountain districts of subtropical 
America. Concerning the development hypothesis of 
Lamarck and Darwin we shall have more to say in a 
subsequent chapter. 

The intermixing of varieties of the same species 
is endless, and is not unlike the law of permutation 
in numbers. But species do not mix voluntarily. 
This very fact was foreshadowed by Moses when he 
wrote of vegetation in the beginning, " whose seed 
is in itself after its kind." How could the fact of the 
persistency of species be more strongly put than the 
writer of the book of Genesis puts it ? Hence it is 
that acorns produce oaks, and thistles generate thistles. 
So in the animal world apes produce apes, and man 
produces man. This law was stamped on creation in 



FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 83 

the beginning ; had it not been so there would have 
been no stability to any thing; there would have been 
" confusion worse confounded " long ago, and the 
world would be a strange medley. And if a few ex- 
ceptions are named they but give emphasis to the law. 

Still there is such a thing as development. The 
ocean steamer gliding majestically over the waters of 
the great deep, carrying a whole village safely, is the 
developed dug-out or raft en which a savage first 
floated across a stream in the chase or in pursuit of 
an enemy. The first tree bower, hut, or tent of some 
kind in which a human being found shelter from the 
storms was the beginning of the architectural piles 
upon which we gaze with wonder and admiration. 
Here has been development in the human sphere, re- 
sulting from the operations of the laws of mind, and 
not as a result of some force resident in matter. But 
there is a higher sphere, that of nature, in which God 
alone reigns. The eagle has developed from a germ 
in the egg, the oak from an acorn, the crops of all 
kinds from seeds which have rotted in the ground. 
The human intellect is a developing force in the one 
sphere, in the other the results have come through cer- 
tain specific laws formulated in the beginning by in- 
finite wisdom. 

The greatest of all facts are those of human nature, 
human life, human sin, and how to escape evil. 
Great disputes have arisen over the " tree of life" 
and the " tree of the knowledge of good and evil." 
Many have been the discussions as to how evil came 
to be. There have been various opinions held among 
men concerning the freedom of the will, the location 
of the garden of Eden, the part played by the ser- 



84 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

pent, etc. The main facts have been at times quite 
lost sight of in these discussions. Sin and redemp- 
tion are the central facts of the Bible. To impress 
these on the minds and hearts of the race is the prin- 
cipal object of Scripture revelation. To effect this 
the writers have used plain historical statements, 
but often under cover of strong figures of speech, 
which the eve itself could discern. 

The' story of the first woman's creation is regarded 
by many as mythical or legendary, and the question 
lias been raised in many a Bible-class, " Was Eve 
really created out of a rib taken from the side of 
Adam ? " Well, who can say positively that she was not. 
Suppose you attempt to argue the case on the nega- 
tive side. Where would you obtain your data ? It 
is easy to laugh and ridicule an idea and call it pre- 
posterous, and all that ; but ridicule is not argument. 
If she came into being in the manner described, 
though it may seem a strange method of procedure, is 
not the whole universe full of strange things? Can, 
we explain all things ? There is a very small animal 
or animalcule known to natural history which is very 
curious. If one of them is cut in two each half in a 
very few minutes becomes as perfect as the original. 
Cut each of these in two in the same way, and the 
process goes on; four become eight, eight become six- 
teen, sixteen become thirty-two, and so on. A million 
will be produced in twenty-four hours, and a hundred 
and forty billions in less than a week. They are mi- 
croscopic, to be sure, but they are nevertheless living 
beings. Do not smile or ridicule this, for it is science. 
The Bible says nothing about it. The result is worked 
out by the law of nature, which is the law of God. 



FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 85 

Then there is that loathsome worm that crawls 
across your pathway. In the autumn it creeps into 
some nook or cranny, and in the most ingenious way 
conceivable weaves about itself a little house, im- 
pervious to wind and water, and in the spring-time 
comes forth a beautiful butterfly which flits about us 
on airy wing. Is it not marvelous \ Can you explain 
it? Here lies before us an egg ; let us examine it; 
we see no sign of life in it ; it is food. But place it 
under the warm feathers of the mother-bird, and that 
shell soon incloses a living being, and then in time 
discloses a perfect organism with, eyes as perfect as a 
man's, with a bony frame to support the flesh, with 
joints, cartilages, muscles, veins, arteries, nerves, with 
a heart which at the first trembled almost impercepti- 
bly, but which increases as the days go by, until that 
tremulous motion turns into rhythmic throbs, sending 
the blood through its whole body. But look at it again, 
and here are w T ings to cleave the air, the feathers of 
which are placed at such an angle of obliquity that 
though the stroke as it flies is vertical the bird is pro- 
pelled forward horizontally, or in sweeping curves, up 
or down in any direction which it may choose. 

What first moved that heart and set it to beating ? 
There is only one answer — God. There is nothing 
in the natural world which presents a more striking 
instance of design than the plumage of the birds. 

" Take the fact that their feathers themselves are 
composed of small parts having barbs or hooks to 
fasten them together where tightness is necessary, 
and the other fact that the inner coating is often of 
loose fine down, as in the eider-duck, to secure warmth. 
It is interesting, too, to observe that the feathers all lie 



86 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

smoothly in one direction, so that in passing through 
either the air or water there is no obstruction. 

" But a wonderful provision for the water-fowl, in 
particular, strikes us very forcibly as a proof of a 
superintending Providence in the creation of all ani- 
mals. A goose or duck, for instance, being so much 
in the water, would soon be soaked through all its 
feathery garments and be loaded down and unable 
to swim; and so those water-fowl that make long 
journeys on the wing through rain-storms and mists 
would for the same reason be unable to fly. But 
here Providence meets this difficulty by giving to 
these birds small oil-sacks, and the apparatus also for 
making the oil and always keeping them full, and 
then placing them within reach of the bill of the 
bird, so that it can draw out the oil and spread it 
through and over the whole of its garment of feathers ; 
and thus is the bird clad in a first-class water-proof 
suit which no India-rubber manufacturer could im- 
prove, and which adds nothing whatever to its 
weight. This water-proof suit can be worn every 
day without inconvenience, and is always on hand 
ready for use. By watching the fowl the oiling 
operation can often be seen ; and how very dexter- 
ously it is performed ! This explains why water runs 
so easily from the duck's back." 

Let us not rule the Almighty out of his own do- 
minions, for his ways are not our ways ; his foot- 
steps are seen every-where, in the rocks and among 
the beasts and the birds. All nature sings his praise, 
whether it be in the babbling brook, the blooming 
flower, or the rolling planet. 

u I tossed a little dried-up root," wrote the Rev. 



FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 87 

Robert Collyer, "into a dark corner once, where I was 
doing a bit of gardening. ' You are of no use,' I said, 
'and might as well rot.' But the little thing knew bet- 
ter than that. I had given it up ; but then it fell 
back on the only God it knew of — our blessed moth- 
er, Nature. It ran rootlets into the tilth of May, and 
began to sprout. Then June came along and said, 
' You must flower.' But there w^as no flowering in 
that dark hole ; so what should my brave little root 
do but creep out of the hole on a long stock, find the 
sun, and unfold a blossom as blue as heaven, and 
beautiful, and then turn up its cap to drink the dew. 
And so it was that one day, when I went to hunt up 
an old rake or something in the hole, there was rav 
blossom — no, not mine, God's blossom — bowing to 
me in the sweet south wind, and seeming to say, 
'Good-morrow!' And I lifted the bonnie blue-bell 
and kissed it tenderly on my knees. I have never 
heard such a sermon as my blue-bell preached that 
June day/' 

But to return to the creation of Eve ; suppose all 
this to be a figurative or allegorical representation. 
Some most beautiful truths are among them : first, 
that the woman was created after the man. He is to 
go forth and battle with the elements, while her 
mission is to garnish things into beauty. Adam was 
made of the raw material, " red earth," she of the 
same material after it had gone through a refining 
process. She was destined to walk by his side, his 
equal, not his slave nor his drudge. She was by 
God's appointment made to be a potent factor in the 
life of the world. 

Is she not so, and do we not all receive our first 



88 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

impressions from woman ? In school, in church, and 
in society she is any thing but a cipher. She does 
exist as wife and mother ; and if there is any thing 
mythical in her creation or origin one thing is 
evident, she is not a myth. Let us cling to the plain 
scriptural account at least until the world can find 
something better, which it never will. 

By way of contrast with the Scripture, I wish to 
introduce here from Greek sources the account of the 
creation of the first woman. 

The attempt has been made to trace an analogy 
between this more ancient tradition and the account 
of the fall as detailed in the sacred volume. But the 
words of the writer who furnished the Wend do 
not warrant such a relation. According to this story, 
" Jupiter, it seems, became incensed at Prometheus 
for having stolen fire from the skies, and resolved to 
punish men for this daring deed. He therefore di- 
rected Vulcan to knead earth and water together and 
give it human voice and strength, and to make it 
assume the fair form of a virgin, like the immortal 
goddesses. He desired Minerva to endow her with 
artist knowledge, Venus to give her beauty, and 
Mercury to inspire her with an impudent and artful 
disposition. When formed she was attired by the 
seasons and graces, and each of the deities having be- 
stowed upon her the commanded gifts, she was named 
Pandora — All-gifted. Thus furnished, she was 
brought by Mercury to the dwelling of Epimetheus, 
who — though his brother, Prometheus, had warned 
him to be on his guard, and to receive no gift from 
Jupiter — dazzled with her charms, took her into his 
house and made her his wife. The evil effects of this 



FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 89 

imprudent step were speedily felt. In the dwelling 
of Epimetheus stood a closed jar which he had been 
forbidden to open. Pandora, under the influence of 
curiosity, disregarding the injunction, raised the lid, 
and all the evils hitherto unknown to man poured out 
and spread themselves over the earth. In terror at the 
sight of these monsters she shut clown the lid just in 
time to prevent the escape of Hope, which thus re- 
mained to man, his chief support and comfort." 

Long ago we read in an old book something far more 
worthy of woman than this mythical extract from a 
Greek author : " Woman from her infancy to old 
age is an object of constant interest, and it is not 
strange that a being so tender, and yet so full of en- 
dearments, should call forth the admiration of the 
philosopher and the fervid praises of the poet. Her 
history is the narrative of good deeds ; in health she 
is our pride, in sickness our solace, and in the faith- 
ful discharge of her duty she is the idol of all hearts. 
Like a ministering angel she soothes us in our afflic- 
tions, in adversity she inspires hope and invites us 
to new efforts. Who has not felt the cheering influ- 
ences of her smile and the encouragement of her elo- 
quence in the dark hour of despondency ? Abandoned 
by friends and left to the cold charities of a selfish 
and heartless world, the husband then, if not before, 
knows how to appreciate the depths of a wife's love 
and the sincerity of a wife's vows. 

" God fashioned man from out the common earth, 
But not from earth the woman ; 
So does she even when fallen bear with her 
Some sign of heaven, some 
Mystic starry light. 



90 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOLT WRIT. 

" Most gentle is she in all gentle deeds ; 
In all sweet offices in fireside life; 
A touch to cool the fevered brow of pain, 
A voice to ease the heavy heart of care." 

Another point in this Bible account relates to the 
personating of Satan by the serpent, in the conversa- 
tion with Eve. But was it a serpent ? On this ques- 
tion the most learned scholars differ, some holding 
that it was a real serpent, bringing forth as an ar- 
gument that some serpents even to-day have rudi- 
mentary legs, the use of which they have entirely 
lost. It is a fact, we think, that all serpents have these 
same rudimentary legs ; but that does not prove that 
they ever walked like quadrupeds ; nature is full of 
strange types. Another class of writers holds to the 
belief that the word translated " serpent " might 
equally well be rendered ape, and therefore it was not 
a serpent. That which so divides the learned world 
cannot be of very much importance ; and, whether 
serpent or ape, the miracle would be the same. But 
for the sake of argument let us conclude that this 
was an allegory designed to set forth the stealthy 
creeping in of sin. The word Eden signifies delight. 
The sinless inhabitants were happy when they were 
obedient and pure. Wherever this garden of delight 
was located, whether in Assyria or at the North Pole, 
as a recent writer* claims, matters but little save as a 
question appealing to our curiosity. 

The Eden was in them because they were happy. 
But temptation came ; sin, serpent-like, crept into 
the garden ; they ate — that is, they disobeyed God. 
All discussion about what they ate is the merest 

* President W. F. Warren, Paradise Found. 



FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 91 

waste of time. It was the disobedience, not the ap- 
ple, that disturbed the harmonies of Eden. They 
fell — that is, they became consciously guilty. They 
were driven out of Eden — that is, they lost their in- 
nocence and were rendered unhappy ; in other words, 
Eden was banished from their hearts. This whole 
account has a meaning deeper than the mere word- 
ing. The reader may see in this a literal history, or 
he may read it as an allegory or fiction, so far as the 
tree and the serpent are concerned ; but so far as the 
great fact of human transgression of divine law and 
the resulting misery to mankind are concerned there 
is no room for doubt. Sin is in the world, its most 
prevalent and most awful fact. 



92 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FACT AND FICTION AMONG THE HEATHEN. 

THERE is one other phase of this subject of which 
I wish to speak, namely, fact and fiction among 
the heathen, and especially in ancient times. Their 
system was full of fiction along the lines of the su- 
pernatural. But there was this difference between 
the heathen or Gentile world and the Jewish, that 
while the writings of the latter contained fictions ap- 
pealing to us in symbols, metaphors, allegories, and 
parables, they were intended to teach mankind spir- 
itual truths which should uplift and purify the soul. 
On the other hand, the fictions of the pagan world 
were rather explanatory of nature. That they were 
founded on facts or phenomena of the natural world 
is most apparent. There is a pathetic side to this 
subject ; our deepest pity is awakened as we peruse 
this story of the world's effort to understand the mys- 
teries of the universe. That there have been honest 
seekers after the truth among pagans let us cheerfully 
admit. While among savage peoples the symbolisms 
were coarse, crude, and often bloody, among the cult- 
ured Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans they were often 
characterized by great refinement, running into the 
beautiful and poetic. But they all failed to reach the 
height gained by the descendants of Abraham. 

A veil of mist overhung their theories and their 
theologies, and sometimes they were shrouded in 



FA CT AND FICTION AMONG THE HE A THEN 93 

deepest gloom. They only cauglit glimpses of light 
as it darted through the cloud-rifts about them. Noth- 
ing seems to us more certain than that mankind in 
the beginning were monotheists — believers in and 
worshipers of the one true God. That in every land 
and in every age man has been a religious being is 
as certain as that he has a physical nature. The altars 
and gods of universal heathendom are witnesses of this 
fact in the world's life. This subject is introduced 
at this time for the purpose of showing the difference 
between the pagan world, with its innumerable myths, 
and the true people of God. 

The Bible tells us that God stamped upon the first 
man his own image, and, though it has been blurred 
by ignorance and so defaced by sin as to be almost 
invisible, nevertheless it does exist. No one thing, 
furthermore, is more distinctively characteristic of 
the human race, as a whole, than the omnipresence of 
religious ideas and forms of worship. That they are 
crude, and often cruel, we know. Perhaps the lowest 
tribe of men on earth are the Orang Kooboos of 
Sumatra. A traveler relates that he once saw a group 
of male and female worshipers sitting around a buluh 
batang, or species of bamboo which attains a great 
size, and all of these poor devotees would, as many 
as could, strike their heads in concert repeatedly 
against the trunk of the tree and simultaneously utter 
in a monotonous tone some rude grunting ejaculations. 
This he observed took place when any one of the 
number was hurt or received any special gratification, 
but mostly when injured. The same author informs 
us that a large portion of the semi-civilized, semi-pagan 
Sumatrans believed that in the enormous tufts of the 



94 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

buluh batang, as well as in some other varieties of 
trees, there exist good and evil spirits. The claim has 
been set up that some tribes of men have been found 
without any religious notions or forms of worship of 
any kind whatever. But that which is common to 
ninety-nine one-hundredths of the whole population of 
the earth will, we think, be found upon more careful 
investigation to belong to the remaining one one- 
hundredth. Whence came this universal impulse ? 
Not from the teachings of the priest nor from a rev- 
elation to the race in the beginning perpetuated by 
an ever-widening channel of tradition ; no, but by a 
supernatural endowment. 

Thomas Carlyle has remarked that " Quackery and 
imposition have fearfully abounded in the later and 
corrupt period of the pagan religion ; but quackery 
was never the originating influence of such things, 
but their disease, the sure precursor of their being 
about to die. Let us never forget this. It seems to 
me a most mournful hypothesis that, of quackery giv- 
ing birth to any faith even in a savage. Quackery 
gives birth to nothing ; gives death to all." 

Religion, however debased, is the result of a super- 
natural endowment, which may be traced to a fertile 
germ which was originally implanted in the human 
breast by the Creator, and which manifests itself 
among men in all ages and races. The great apostle 
writes : " For when the Gentiles " — the heathen — 
" who have not the law, do by nature the things con- 
tained in the law, these having not the law are a law 
unto themselves." That is to say, they have a spir- 
itual nature bestowed upon them in their creation. 
Mankind fell into idolatrous worship as they lost 



FACT AND FICTION AMONG THE HEATHEN 95 

acuteness of perception' and spiritual sensibilities, and 
became sordid and sinful. So long as primeval 
man worshiped the true God he was pure, but as he 
grew out of these early conditions he reached a point 
where the universe could not be contemplated by his 
untutored mind as the sole production of one supreme 
God. It was then that he became intellectually and 
spiritually debased, almost losing the image of God 
from his soul. Had Bacon lived earlier, or if all 
men had been Bacons, it would have been otherwise ; 
for it was he who, in the Novum Organum, taught the 
world more than any other man who ever wrote to rea- 
son from effect to cause, a process that must always 
lead the mind " through nature up to nature's God." 

With the idea of God implanted in the mind of 
man, his inherent religious nature will develop in some 
manner. If a savage, it becomes grotesque ; if civil- 
ized, his religious forms become aesthetic. The wild 
Sumatran is an illustration on the one hand, the cult- 
ured Greek and Roman on the other. It must not be 
forgotten that imagination claimed the ownership of 
the world long before science attempted to establish 
her empire. We have spoken of man as naturally a 
religious being, but he has not always been made good 
by his religion, for in all ages and lands his altar-fumes 
have intensified his passions and given him the greater 
power to do evil ; he has often gone forth, to rob and 
murder and commit all other crimes in the name of 
his divinity. To this child of God — for such he has 
ever been by nature — wandering in the shadows of 
moral night, the stars above were the eyes of heaven. 
While darkness shrouds the earth they act the part 
of sentries, keenly surveying the actions of mankind. 



96 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

The moon was held to be a female deity, and, having 
an apparently human face, she was believed to be in 
a pleasant mood so long as she presented her lustrous 
countenance toward the earth ; but if she veiled her 
face under an eclipse she was thought to be angry 
at her votaries. Rain-drops were the tears heaven 
shed upon the earth. The clouds- were easily trans- 
formed into mailed warriors of the skies. Hail-stones 
were the algid missiles of some angry frost-king. The 
earth, under the name of Ceres, was a mother pro- 
ducing a numerous progeny. Did the rainbow throw 
its arch across the sky, belting the thunder-cloud with 
beautv, imagination at once transformed it into the 
." bridge of the gods," down which the spirits of a 
brighter sphere came to hold soothing converse with 
the fallen, world-battered sons of men. We may call 
all this fancy if we will, yet there was a beautiful and 
even an elevating philosophy in the thought ; it taught 
men that the benevolent " All Father " watched over 
his children and would sometime come down to sym- 
pathize with the sorrows and gladden with his pres- 
ence the world. 

u Under this apparently primitive habit of mind," 
says Dr. Horace Busknell,* u we find men readiest, in 
fact, to believe that which exceeds the terms of nat- 
ure — in deities and apparitions of deities, that fill the 
heavens and the earth with their sublime turmoil, in 
fates and furies, in nymphs and graces, in signs and 
oracles and incantations, in ' gorgons and* chimeras 
dire.' Their gods are charioteering in the sun, pre- 
siding in the mountain-tops, rising out of the foam of 
the sea, breathing inspirations in the gas that issues 

* Natter e and the Supernatural 



FACT AND FWTION AMONG THE HEATHEN. 97 

from caves and rocky fissures, loosing their rage in 
the storm, plotting against each other in the intrigues 
of the courts, mixing in battles to give success to their 
own people or defeat the people of some rival deity. 
All departments and regions of the world are full of 
their miraculous activity. Above ground they are 
manaoino; the thunders, distilling in showers or set- 
tling in dews, ripening or blasting the harvests, breath- 
ing health or poisoning the air with pestilential in- 
fections. In the ground they stir up volcanic fires 
and wrestle in earthquakes that shake down cities. 
In the deep world under-ground they receive the 
ghosts of departed men and preside in Tartarean maj- 
esty over the realms of the shades. The unity of rea- 
son was nothing to these Gentiles." 

The religious sentiment ran like a vein of gold 
through the fictions of the early world. Philosophy 
had not laid bare the laws and operations of nature as 
it has to us ; and in their simpler faith they traced 
the immediate finger of the Deity in all the mysterious 
phenomena around them. They heard his voice in the 
rolling thunders and in the mysterious winds, chanting 
their anthems in the forests at night. They felt his 
presence alike in the hot silence of a summer noon 
and saw it in the solemn splendors of the midnight 
sky. All music was but the echo of his voice ; all 
beauty was but the shadow of his smile. The poetical 
mythology which confided the fountains to the naiads, 
the flocks to Pan, the harvests to Ceres, and the thun- 
ders to Jupiter taught its disciples that the universe 
itself was the spacious temple of divinity ; and we must 
see that divine dogmas ran like silver threading 
through the weft of the ancient nations. 



98 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOLY WHIT. 

"As in the individual sentiment is manifested be- 
fore intelligence and imagination precedes reflection, 
so in nations the literature of the heart has always pre- 
ceded that of the head. Hence the vagaries of fiction, 
if not based always on substantial facts, have yet her- 
alded, though sometimes at a distance quite remote, 
the footsteps of philosophy." Plato, in his Reminis- 
cences, shadowed forth the doctrines of the soul's ante- 
natal life, and so the Greeks fancied that it was the 
milky way down which the spirits, exiled from their 
heavenly home, descended on their tearful pilgrimage 
to dwell in human flesh, and as they gravitated toward 
this lower world, and came in contact with the grosser 
forms of nature, became stupefied, and, waking up to 
their earthy nesting, had but a confused memory of 
their former history. This, like most of their philoso- 
phy, w^as borrowed from Egypt, land of symbols as 
well as the earlier home of philosophy. There was in 
all the ancient world a religious sentiment, based on 
the original idea of the one true God. This was 
followed by the deification of single attributes, or 
cosmic manifestations of the Supreme. These were 
personified, or considered as so many little gods or 
divine hypostases. 

Their reasoning must have been after this manner : 
The Supreme Being has attributes or qualities which 
collectively make up his being ; hence, he would not 
be the Supreme if any one of these accessories were 
wanting, and so it follows that each one of these must 
be a supreme being, because each one includes or re- 
quires all the rest to complete the idea of such a being. 
In their pantheistic faith the atmosphere, ether, light, 
fire, the sun, winds, storms, fear, virtue, all were 



FACT AND FICTION AMONG THE HEATHEN. 99 

deities. Surely theirs was a spirit of reverence, and 
beautiful indeed were many of the fictions of the early 
world. We do not say that they were based on truth 
wholly, but that there was a grasp and a grandeur in 
them which later ages have scarcely been able to un- 
derstand is equally true. 

The imagination of these early peoples was bold and 
vigorous, and besides was characterized bv a greater 
freshness than we of this practical utilitarian age can 
well comprehend. All this was only mythology after 
all. These meant nothing to man's inner life. They 
possessed no soul-searching power which resulted in 
faith, love, duty. The foundation of all religion is in 
the natural heart, in the belief of one God and Father. 
Blot this out even partially, and mankind will turn to 
the planets, the mountains, the grottoes, and the groves. 
Destroy the Bible, raze the churches, scatter the Sun- 
day-schools — demolish all these evangelical agencies 
which exist for the world's welfare, and our posterity 
would worship serpents, paint their faces with hideous 
figures, brandish the savage war-club, believe in 
witches, and in a word walk just where mankind 
through the ages of paganism have walked. 



100 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

MAN THE MONARCH.- 

IN no one thing do the two books — the rocky scroll 
we call earth, nature, and the written scroll we call 
Bible — come together more certainly and closely than 
in the position given by each to the human species. 
In both man is placed at the head — the monarch of 
the world. 

We are aware of the fact that some writers claim 
that the human race, instead of having come upon the 
stage recently, has existed upon the earth for the 
space, possibly, of one hundred thousand years, more 
or less. This claim is based on the finding of human 
remains, notably skull-bones, in such geological rela- 
tions as to argue for a much longer residence than has 
generally been allowed. We are not in possession here 
and now of sufficient data by which formally to dis- 
prove this claim of a certain school of scientists. It may 
be that he has lived, moved, and had his being on the 
earth through as many ages as some have tried to show. 

We would not leave unnoticed the fact that an armi- 
ment for his development from some lower order of 
being — remotely, the monad or tadpole, more re- 
cently, the ape or monkey — has been made for the 
purpose of forcing upon the world this theory. Great 
periods of time have been drawn upon in order that this 
monad or original protoplasm might graduate through 
fishes and other animals into a man. 



MAN THE MONARCH. 101 

It is not the author's purpose to enter into a close 
or extended discussion of the development theory at 
this time. It has really become too much of a com- 
monplace topic and has too small a hold on the thought 
of the Christian world to merit here an elaborate 
treatment ; and yet a professor of Harvard University 
has recently prepared a First Book on Geology, for 
beginners, in which there is a chapter telling us how 
" species are made." " It is worthy of note," says a 
reviewer of the book, " that the chapter appears with 
no apology for being presented — a circumstance that 
would have been hazardous a decade ago." This 
teacher of science * goes on to say : 

" Among the questions which the student of the 
earth finds always before him in the study of its 
history are : how animals and plants have come to be ; 
how this life began ; how, from time to time, these 
living creatures have disappeared and been replaced 
by other kinds. These are ail hard questions, and we 
cannot yet give them full answers. Until modern 
times students did not know there had been a very 
long history to life, in which all the kinds of beings 
had often been changed, giving place to other kinds. 
Therefore, until our own day, the general opinion was 
that all the kinds of animals and plants now on the 
earth had been created from the dust in the shape 
we find them. But when in this century it was 
found that before the coming of each of these living 
animals and plants there were other forms closely re- 
sembling them, yet of different species, and that this 
chain of beings stretched clear back into the past, the 
animals becoming more simple as we went toward the 

* Professor X. S. Shaler. 



102 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

time when life began, it was gradually learned that 
these animals had in some way sprung from each 
other. For we cannot well believe that the Creator 
would make such relationships between creatures, cre- 
ating each like that that went before, yet with a differ- 
ence. It is far more reasonable to believe that the 
living forms have sprung from the kindred forms 
that have passed away. So strong is this argument 
that there is probably not a single person living who 
has been a careful student of animals or plants who 
doubts that the life now on earth has sprung from 
species or kinds that have passed away. The only 
doubt is as to the means by which the change from 
one to the other has been brought about. This is the 
question to which students of nature are now giving 
the most of their attention. 

" So far but one clear way has been found in which 
the change can be accounted for, and while it cannot 
explain more than a part of the puzzle it is an im- 
portant help to our knowledge of life. This partial 
explanation is known as the Darwinian theory, taking 
its name from the student who first suggested it." 

It is only in a modern sense that Darwin can be 
called the originator of this " theory." It dates far- 
ther back, and is a godless theory, in fact. But does 
not the author of this quotation make rather a bold 
charge when he affirms that there is probably not a 
"single person living" who has been a careful student 
of animals or plants who doubts that the life now on the 
earth has sprung from species or kinds that have passed 
away ? It is true Hugh Miller is not " living," neither 
is the great Agassiz ; but they, "being dead," yet 
speak. And this is the way the great Scottish Christian 



MAN THE MONARCH. 103 

geologist, whose writings have been read around the 
world, puts himself on record : " The perished tribes 
and races ... all began to exist. . . . There is no truth 
which science can more conclusively demonstrate than 
that they all had a beginning. The infidel who, in 
this late age of the world, would attempt falling back 
on the fiction of an 'infinite series' would be laughed 
to scorn. They all began to be; but how? No true 
geologist holds by the development hypothesis. It has 
been resigned to sciolists and smatterers ; and there is 
but one other alternation. They began to be through 
the miracle of creation. From the evidence furnished 
by these rocks [the Old Red Sandstone] we are shut 
down either to the belief in something infinitely harder 
of reception, and as thoroughly unsupported by testi- 
mony as it is contrary to experience." * 

The learned Agassiz says : " It is evident that there 
is a manifest progress in the succession of beings on the 
surface of the earth. This progress consists in an in- 
creasing similarity to the living fauna and among the 
vertebrates, especially in their increasing resemblance 
to man. 

" But this connection is not the consequence of direct 
lineage between the faunas of different ages. There 
is nothing like parental descent connecting them. 
The fishes of the paleozoic age are in no respect the 
ancestors of the reptiles of the secondary age. Nor 
does man descend from the mammals which preceded 
him in the tertiary age. The link by which they 
are connected is of a higher and immaterial nature, 
and their connection is to be sought in the view of the 
Creator himself, whose aim in forming the earth, in 

* Footprints of the Creator, p. 301. 



104 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

allowing it to undergo the successive changes which 
geology points out, and in creating successively all 
different types of animals which have passed away, 
was to introduce man upon the surface of the earth. 
Man is the end toward which all the animal creation 
has tended from the beginning." 

Professor Joseph Leconte writes : * " Geology, 
then, teaches, and, as it seems to me, unmistakably 
teaches, that the law of succession of animals and 
plants is that of progressive development in time of 
these two kingdoms. But although there has been a 
development it is not the development of the 
Lamarckian, or that of the author of the Vestiges 
of Creation and the Pantheists. The development 
which geology teaches is not a development which 
is the result of physical laws and physical form. If 
there is any thing which geology teaches with clear- 
ness it is that the animal and vegetable kingdoms did 
not commence as monads, or vital points, but as organ- 
isms so perfect that even the maddest Lamarckian 
must admit that they could not have been formed by 
agency of physical forces ; that species did not pass 
into one another by transmutation, but that each 
species was introduced in full perfection, remained 
unchanged during the term of their existence, and 
died in full perfection ; that physical conditions can- 
not change one species into another, but that a species 
will give up its life rather than its specific character. 

" In traversing from the equator to the poles we 
pass from one geological fauna to another, from one 
set of species to another; but observe there is no 
transmutation. So also in passing from the oldest geo- 

* Lecture, Smithsonian Institution. 



MAN THE MONARCH. 105 

logical to the present fauna we pass from one set of 
species to another, not, however, by transmutation, 
but always by substitution. This has been repeated 
so many thousand times in the geological history of 
the earth that there is no room for doubt on the sub- 
ject. As far as the evidence of geology extends each 
species was introduced by the direct miraculous agency 
of a personal intelligence. 

" As to varieties among the different species there is 
no question of doubt. There are over three hundred 
varieties of humming-birds, hundreds of varieties of 
dogs, horses, swine, sheep, etc. ; but species do not mix, 
dogs do not grow into horses, nor humming-birds into 
eagles. The ingenuity of man has been taxed to pro- 
duce varieties, and here there is scarcely a limit. But 
the laws regulating species were formulated in the very 
beginning, and hold sway to-day over all the earth." 

So we prefer to accept the simple statement of the 
great fact we call man. No matter how he began, 
when he began, nor where he began, his existence 
with all the powers with which he is endowed consti- 
tutes a fact of overwhelming magnitude. But even 
if he has been here for one hundred thousand years 
his advent, geologically speaking, was relatively recent. 
The age of the world itself has never been settled, 
and cannot be, though attempts have been made to 
ascertain exactly how old the earth is. 

While it does not matter so much practically about 
the origin of man, it does matter greatly what he is 
and where he is going. It is the man of to-day, and 
not the man of prehistoric times, in which we are 
interested. That this wonderful being bears some 
resemblance to the animal world is not to be denied. 



I 06 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

That he has a spinal column molded after the fash- 
ion of the first spinal column owned by a fish that 
sported in primeval seas is true ; but this does not 
argue that man is a developed fish ! 

Position is not parentage. We have actually heard it 
rumored in recent times that some men were without 
spinal columns, and may be they descended from the 
original protoplasm and have remained protoplastic 
ever since ! But man is more than a mere bodily 
organism ; he has all the instincts of animal nature ; 
but these are surmounted by the higher powers of 
reason. Plato said : " Man is a two-legged animal 
without feathers." Socrates turned the laugh on 
Plato by bringing in a fowl clipped of its feathers,, 
exclaiming, " Behold Plato's man ! " Man has been 
called a " laughing animal," a " cooking animal," a 
"lazy animal," a " tool-making animal," an animal 
that " makes bargains;" for no animal does this ; dogs 
never trade bones ; they sometimes exhibit a good deal 
of human nature, and adopt the maxim that "might 
makes right." He has also been called a "dupable* ani- 
mal," who loves quacks in medicine, politics, and relig- 
ion. No definition which includes the animal merely 
sufficiently defines man, for by his reasoning faculties, 
his spiritual endowments, he is as far removed from 
mere animalism as the sun is above the glow-worm. 

The universe was created for a purpose; and what 
was that purpose ? To show forth the power, wisdom, 
and glory of God. "The heavens declare the glory 
of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." 
But in whose eyes do these glories shine? 

Does any one imagine that the fishes that sport in 
the depths of the lake or ocean ever turn their eyes 



MAN THE MONARCH. 107 

to behold the wonders of the elements in which they 
swim, or that the birds that cleave the air on pliant 
wing have any admiration for the landscapes that 
undulate in beauty beneath them in their flight ? Is 
it at all supposable that the myriad beasts of the field 
and forest are ever moved to feelings of rational de- 
light, or awed into reverence by the light which 
streams upon them from sun or star? The sea, the 
earth, the heavens, declare the glory of their Author 
only to man, who possesses the power of reason, and 
whose soul, like a harp-string, is responsive to the 
touch of divinity. Take man out of the field of 
vision — man as we see him, developed into sensitive 
rational life ; man as we behold him wresting the 
secrets of Nature from her grasp, going forth to pub- 
lish the mystery of the stars — take him away and fill 
the earth with every thing else, animate and inani- 
mate, and the blank would be oppressive. 

It is a fact that as the present order of things in the 
earth was approaching its completion old forms be- 
gan to disappear ; the hideous and frightful monsters 
that sported in primeval seas or roamed over the 
virgin earth became extinct, and the violent changes 
in the earth itself all subsided. "Not only the uses, 
but the beauty, of created things gradually increased 
with the progress of time. The gorgeous plumage 
and the musical warblings of birds, the brilliant hues 
of the insects, the delicate tints and fragrance of 
flowers, all have been increasing. The same is true of 
the inorganic kingdom. By physical agencies which 
are well understood the surface of our earth has been 
sculptured into higher and still higher forms of beauty. 
Indeed, currents of air and water, sunshine and shower, 



108 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

blue sky and snowy clouds, mountains and valleys, 
crag and cliff, all that gives beauty and variety to this 
our beloved earth, has been steadily increasing with 
the lapse of geological time." * 

"Nature," wrote Emerson, "is sanitive, refining, 
elevating. How cunningly she hides every wrinkle 
of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and vio- 
lets and morning dews ! Every inch of the mount- 
ains is scarred by unimaginable convulsions, yet the 
new day is purple with the bloom of youth and love. 
Look out into the July night and see the broad belt 
of silver flame which flashes up half of the heavens, 
fresh and delicate as the bonfires of the meadow- 
flies. Yet the power of numbers cannot compute its 
enormous age, lasting as space and time, embosomed 
in time and space." 

Why all this change ? The answer is plain. 
When this God-appointed ruler came upon the scene 
the earth was no longer without its proper governor 
under the supreme Governor of the universe. To 
him it was said, " Thou shalt have dominion." Does 
he rule ? Is he not a master ? What matter or what 
force does he not control ? The storing away in the 
earth's deep beds these varied, elements was but the 
preparation for the advent of the " lord of this lower 
world." Vast mechanical power was packed away 
for his use. For ages uncounted it lay there awaiting 
his coming. At last his hand has touched it, and out 
from the deep he exhumes the buried past, and spin- 
dle and wheel and throbbing engine on land and sea 
disclose the purposes of God formed ages and ages 
ago. 

* Professor Leconte, Science and Religion. 



MAN THE MONARCH. 109 

Man is here, but how did lie come? By the fiat of 
God. 

It is written, u Let us make man." From this 
simple and dignified statement of the old book a class 
of men dissent, claiming that this lordly being is but 
the last link in a chain, the end of a long series of 
changes culminating in himself. It is marvelous how 
some people will disbelieve the possible and affect to 
believe the impossible. 

As a specimen of the reasoning of the materialist, 
note this from Professor Lorenzo Oken : " There are 
two kinds of generation in the world — the creation 
proper and the propagation that is sequent thereupon, 
or the generatio originaria and secundaria / conse- 
quently no organism has ever been created of larger 
size than an infusorial point. No organism is nor 
ever has been created which is not microscopic. 
Whatever is larger has not been created but devel- 
oped." Hugh Miller says : * " God might as certainly 
have originated the species by a law of development 
as he maintains it by a law of development ; the ex- 
istence of the first great cause is as perfectly compati- 
ble with the one scheme as with the other. But," 
he continues, " there are beliefs in no degree less im- 
portant to the moralist or to the Christian than even 
that of the being of a God, which seem wholly 
incompatible with the development hypothesis. If 
during a period so vast as to be scarce expressible by 
figures the creatures' now human have been rising by 
almost infinitesimals from compound microscopic cells, 
minute globules within globules, begotten by electric- 
ity on dead gelatinous matter, until they have at length 

* Footprints of the Creator, pp. 37, 38. 



110 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLT WRIT. 

become men and women whom we see around us, we 
must either hold the monstrous belief that all the vital- 
ities, whether of monads or mites, of fishes or reptiles, 
of birds or beasts, are individually or inherently im- 
mortal and undying, or that human souls are not so." 
As a further specimen of the reasoning on the other 
side I again quote from Professor S baler: "Nearly 
every living thing has two sorts of enemies in the 
world — passive enemies, which occupy the place in 
sea, on land, or in the open air which the new-comer 
needs, and active enemies in the creatures that prey 
upon it and try to make food of its body. We see 
that these creatures are constantly trying new plans 
to make themselves better fitted to win success out of 
their difficulties ; they become swifter of foot or wing, 
they get stronger defensive weapons, they invent new 
habits that will elude their enemies ; in a thousand 
different ways they change to meet their needs. It is 
certain that to these changes, which serve to help the 
creatures in the long battle for life, we owe a great 
part of the changes that are constantly rising in the 
forms of living things. The only trouble arises when 
we try to see just how the change is brought about. 
¥e may in part explain it in this way : Among all 
the young of any animal or plant each differs some- 
what from any other. These differences are gener- 
ally slight, but they may be enough to give the par- 
ticular creature a better chance to live ; it may be 
stronger limbs for flight or chase, or some difference 
in habits or any other profitable quality of its body or 
mind. In other words, those that vary in the direc- 
tion of profit will be more likely to survive in the 
struggle for existence than those that vary in other 



MAN THE MONAR GH. Ill 

directions. Next we must notice the fact that each 
living creature is likely to give its peculiar traits of 
body and mind to its descendants, so that they will 
have a share of the same peculiarities that the parent 
had, and on these creatures the same principle of sur- 
vival of those that are fittest for success will again 
act, making the profitable feature stronger than it was 
before. If longer legs or stronger wings saved the 
parent, it is likely to give those longer legs or stronger 
wings to its offspring which will give them an advan- 
tage over the children of those other members of the 
same species that have not this peculiarity. Some of 
these descendants of the loncr-leo^ed or strong-winged 
animal will probably have these parts better developed 
than the parent, and so its children will get the ad- 
vantage of its cousins and thus prevail over them. 
From generation to generation the wings become 
stronger or the legs larger until a race is made that 
differs very far from the creatures from which it orig- 
inally came, so that we call it a different species. In 
time all the individuals of the species that have not 

J- 

changed in this way will be destroyed by their ene- 
mies, so that the old species will disappear and the 
new take its place." 

The African giraffe then was not originally a 
giraffe, but a plastic monad, a microzoon ; then at 
length becoming dissatisfied with its lowly condition 
it concluded to become something else, and then after 
infinite ages still something else, until it conceived 
the idea of locomotion, and so tried a "new plan," 
and created for itself legs with bones, muscles, nerves, 
arteries, joints, and thus in time became a quadruped. 
But in some way this quadruped, unlike all others in 



1 12 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

existence, was seized with a desire to feed on tree- 
tops, and all it had to do was to desire, and in time 
this desire, persisted in, gave it enormously long fore- 
legs and a prodigious length of neck. The Creator 
had nothing to do with the origin of the giraffe spe- 
cies. Like the oft-quoted Topsy, it was not born, it 
" jes' growed." 

So the duck, swan, goose, loon, and all other aquatic 
birds belonged to no species in particular ; they were 
mere lumps of animated matter, but from some cause 
unknown to themselves they were seized with a desire 
to swim in the ponds, and so they " invented " oil- 
sacks with which to fill their skin, that they might 
not become water-logged, taking great care to place 
them just where they could easily reach them with 
their bills, and then all they needed was web-feet. 
This required only a few millions of years, bat they 
persisted and won. This is how we have ducks and 
geese. By the same process the elephant came into 
possession of his trunk, the camel his series of stom- 
achs, so that he could make long marches through 
sandy deserts, the turtle his shell, the serpent his 
venom and rattles, and the Darwinians their hypothe- 
sis ! We are actually taught by this school of philoso- 
phers that " the sperm-whales come from creatures 
nearly like our bears that were pretty well up in the 
world, but their ancestors took first to living partly in 
the water and partly on the land, then finally to an 
altogether water life, so they have lost their hair, 
their hind legs have shrunk away, their fore legs be- 
come reduced to paddles, and the whole body has 
taken on the outside form of a fish ! " 

Admitting that there are some considerations along 



MAN THE MONARCH. 113 

this line which are worthy, yet the structure as a 
whole is not only un philosophical, it is visionary and 
irreverent, if not positively absurd. 

Science is ever extending man's intellectual vision, 
and the universe seems to be enlarging its boundaries. 
On the one hand the telescope is bringing before us 
new star wonders, while on the other the microscope 
is an equal revealer of living wonders in nature all 
about us of which our ancestors never dreamed. The 
yawning gulf that divides living protoplasm from 
dead matter is just as impassable now as it was before 
the invention of the microscope. If the theory of evo- 
lution be true, it ought as certainly to become appar- 
ent in the microbe world as anywhere else, for these 
microbes are living beings which propagate their 
species and die. We can start on our argument to- 
day with the axiom, Omnia vivum ex ovo (every living 
thing has sprung from an egg or germ), with just 
as much assurance on our side as when the principle 
was first enunciated. Time and increased knowledge 
of nature have only accumulated evidence of its truth. 

A recent writer - puts the question thus strongly : 
" There is a dazzling simplicity in the hypothesis of 
the genesis of all organic forms that is very attractive 
to the imagination. To believe that all living organ- 
ized existences have been produced from a few masses 
or particles of living protoplasm by forces of natural 
selection, and the conditions of their environment 
seemingly solves the mystery of the universe as easily 
as a child, by the aid of the letters of the alphabet, 
masters the words of his mother-tongue. But when 
in a spirit of calm and scientific inquiry we proceed to 

* Dr. R. Reyburn. 

8 



114 FA CT AND FICTION IN EOL Y WRIT. 

study these problems, we do not find them quite so 
easy of solution as the theory of evolution would seem 
to indicate. Difficulties and doubts arise that must 
be overcome before we can accept it. 

" The life-history of micro-organisms should throw 
light on these questions ; many of them are composed 
of small particles of germinal matter or protoplasm, 
without either the nuclei, cell walls, or cell contents 
that are found in what are ordinarily known as cells 
in living organisms. Before our eyes and on the 
stages of our microscopes we can study them to our 
heart's content. We can watch them multiply either 
by the development of ova (or eggs), by germination 
(or budding), bj fission (or division), or by the pro- 
duction of alternate or successive generations. 

" When the biologist of to-day makes a pure culture 
of a living organism and places it with the proper 
precautions in a pure medium or soil fitted for its 
growth, he invariably finds, and expects to find, the 
same organism growing under his eyes, or on the 
stage of his microscope. He no more finds, or ex- 
pects to find, a different organism resulting than a 
horticulturist would expect to find grapes growing 
upon an apple-tree, or thistles upon a plum-tree." 

The first question to be answered concerning these 
microscopic organisms is the natural query, Whence 
came they? To this question evolution gives no an- 
swer. The microscope certainly disproves the Dar- 
winian theory of evolution in the animal world. 

To see how from the merest vegetable cells, micro- 
scopic in their size, have been derived all the species is 
passing strange. But then that would be no argu- 
ment against it ; but we are confronted with difficult 



MAN TEE MONARCH. 115 

ties. In one case these cells grew into oaks that have 
preserved their identity unimpaired for countless ages; 
in another case the cells grew into mere shrubs, here 
a mushroom, there a cedar. Here they became apple- 
trees, there grapes, now vegetables for food, and then 
blossoms on which to feast the eye, and all without 
God, only by a blind law of nature ! 

If the evolutionists would put the divine Ruler 
into the account we should not object, for "with God 
all things are possible." It can be but necessary to 
state that the great points of antagonism in the op- 
posite lines of belief are simply the law of develop- 
ment versus the miracle of creation. How shall we 
get rid of God ? is the cry of the materialists. The 
task will be a difficult one. 

It is estimated that there are on the earth about 
fifteen hundred millions of human beings. Those 
who imagine that the conditions of savage life are 
unfavorable to density of population may be surprised 
to learn that the latest estimates give to Africa a 
population of sixteen, and to North America only 
about nine, to the square mile. "While the latter con- 
tinent is known to contain only about eighty million 
people the population of Africa, according to Profes- 
sor Levasseur, approximates two hundred millions. 
Nearly two thirds of the human race are grouped on 
about one twelfth of the land area of the globe. At 
this rate a population of twelve thousand millions, in- 
stead of fifteen hundred millions, is possible on the 
earth. They speak more than three thousand lan- 
guages and dialects ; they are civilized and barbarous ; 
in the extreme north they are clad in fur, in the trop- 
ics they often live in a state of nudity. All are not 



1 16 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

alike capable ; some are very low down in the scale of 
being, others high up. 

But what a contradiction man is in himself. He is 
either rising up toward angelic life or sinking down 
toward that of the demon. Both extremes are reached. 
On the one side he is actuated by combativeness, his 
mission seeming to be to foment quarrels and stir up 
strife, to divide friends and convert love into hatred, 
to bring war instead of peace. 

Long ago Dr. Thomas Dick wrote : " Since the 
creation of the world fourteen millions of human 
beings have fallen in the battles which man has 
waged against his brother-man. If this amazing 
number of men were to touch each other by the 
hand at arms' -length they would encircle the globe 
on which we dwell six hundred times." Dr. Prideaux 
states that " in fifty battles fought by Caesar he slew 
1,122,000 of his enemies. If we assign an equal 
number to Alexander the Great, and the §ame to 
Napoleon Bonaparte in his numerous wars, we may 
ascribe the untimely deaths of six millions of human 
beings who had no knowledge of the true reasons 
why they were led to battle, the truth often with 
much artifice being kept from all but those who were 
parties to the designs." 

We have not verified these startling figures; but all 
men know that war is a terrible waste of life. 

But there have been other conquests that were 
bloodless ; human power has been victorious over the 
elements ; man has subordinated the forces of nature 
to himself and thus increased his powers many fold. 
The echoes of his footsteps are heard in every part of 
the earth, from tropic to polar region. He is an ex- 



MA X THE MONA R GH. 1 1 / 

plorer, an adventurer, an autocrat. Does he covet the 
treasures hid away in the earth itself? He contrives 
methods of finding them. He has mapped out the 
ocean and ascertained its configuration with almost as 
much ease and accuracy as he can survey a farm and 
compute its acreage. Does a mountain lift its frown- 
ing summit in his pathway? He scales its crest, or 
burrows his way through its heart. 

The Mont Cenis Tunnel between Savoy and Pied- 
mont in the Alps is more than seven miles in length. 
Two companies of workmen cut their way through 
the entire distance, beginning on opposite sides, and 
when they met mid-mountain their lines did not vary 
an inch. 

We are living not only in a wonderful age, but in 
the very best age of the world so far. Society is not 
as good as it will be in the time to come, but it is far 
better than ever before. Some honest people do not 
believe this ; they are ever telling us how much the 
human race has fallen behind; how much virtue and 
skill and knowledge there were in the world several 
thousand years ago. Even that very erudite lady, 
Miss Martineau, remarks in her book of Travels in 
Egypt and Palestine that the art of lifting such 
masses of stone as are found in the pyramids of the Nile 
and in the ruins of the Baalbec is lost, and that the men 
of this degenerate age could not quarry, transport, and 
raise such immense weights. In this we think she is in 
error ; and to hold such opinions is calculated to 
throw discredit upon all the engineering science of 
the age. The largest block of stone at Baalbec is 
sixty-eight feet long, eighteen feet high, and fourteen 
feet deep, which would give a weight of twelve hun- 



118 FACT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

dred tons. It required great skill and power, no 
doubt, to raise that solid mass to its place in a temple 
or pyramid ; but look at the great Britannia Bridge 
which spans the Menai Strait between the island of 
An°;lesea and the main-land of Wales. It is an iron 
tubular structure erected by that master-engineer 
Robert Stephenson, and at the time of its completion, 
in 1850, was regarded as the greatest piece of work 
of the kind in the world. One of these single tubes 
weighs eighteen hundred tons, or six hundred tons 
more than the famous " big rock " of Baalbec. We 
can hardly imagine that the great stone was any more 
difficult to put in place than one of the tubes of the 
Britannia Bridge. 

Man invents machines which can work more rapidly 
and almost more intelligently than he can himself. 
He invokes the spirit of the waters to propel his 
ponderous trains, and the spirit of the air to stop them. 
He has constructed a machine that can talk ; the pho- 
nograph registers the song or the sermon, w T hich may 
be reproduced in other lands and in other ages. 

But here is a problem which confront us. What is 
to be the final result to future generations of all this 
advance in the use of physical force ? When a machine 
is invented by which one man can accomplish the work 
of ten or twenty, the nine or nineteen are thrown out 
of some particular kind of employment, but not neces- 
sarily out of every kind of service. Facts tell us that 
the improvement and increase of machinery do not 
diminish but add to the aggregate labor of a com- 
munity. Where is there more labor than in the 
United States and Britain, with their thousands of 
steam-engines, electric motors, and all kinds of " labor- 



MAN THE MONAR CH. 119 

saving " instruments ? Where is there less labor than 
among the machineless Hottentots of Africa or the 
sensual islanders of the South Pacific ? The machine 
simply changes the direction of human energy. 

When the patent air-brakes were introduced upon 
the Mexican railroad between Yera Cruz and the 
national capital the change eliminated a considerable 
number of men, throwing them out of the positions 
they had held ; and instead of going at something 
else they sought revenge by stealing about in the 
dark and cutting the rubber pipes, demanding to be 
re-instated as brakemen. For a while it was a con- 
test between brain and muscle ; but brain always 
wins in the end, and it did it this case. It is a trite 
saying that we are living in an age of machinery. 
We have just entered it, and the future must adjust 
itself to the modern order. 

The Bible speaks of a time when " the earth shall 
be filled with thfc knowledge of the Lord," when there 
shall be a " new earth." 

I imagine that in these times there will be no less 
of industry than now, but far more. The millennium 
will not be an age of psalm-singing merely, but one 
of work and thrift. Then industry will banish pau- 
perism ; scientific skill will have the mastery over 
both matter and force. It will be an age of science, 
when men shall be " kings and priests unto God." 
We shall not do less, but more; we shall do it by 
machinery. This will be elevating. The whole race 
will rise by virtue of the increase of man's power. 

As the world grows older there will be greater in- 
telligence ; we shall have more time for intellectual 
and spiritual pursuits. Then will be the long-talked- 



120 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

of and mucli-dreamed-about " Golden Age." All 
this machinery, all these numerous 'inventions, point 
us to just such a good time to come. We are not 
describing some fancied Utopia, but rather a land of 
promise. 

All things are put in subjection to the human race ; 
indeed, man stands for God in this world ; but it is 
only when he is pure in heart, noble in soul, wise in 
thought, benevolent in action, that he properly repre- 
sents his Father and his God. The truest victory he 
can ever achieve is over that which enslaves and de- 
grades humanity. A world redeemed is a world of 
moral and intellectual beauty, a world of industry 
and thrift, where man is not yoked with the beasts 
of the field, but where heart and mind reach upward 
toward God. 

The reign of truth will be a reign of peace. Just 
at present there is a great contest going forward be- 
tween heavy rifled cannon and iron plating on ships 
of war ; rather it is a strife for the mastery between 
the angel of science on the one side and the demon of 
war on the other. The angel of science says iron- 
clad ships can be made impervious to any weight of 
ball and any charge of powder. The demon of war 
says, " I will crash through the thickest plating with 
my steel-pointed shot." Now, this whole question of 
war is destined ultimately to be resolved into another 
question : Who can make the best machine ? The na- 
tion which can produce the best mechanics will bear 
away the palm of victory. Thus science, by making 
war engines so very deadly, will virtually abolish war. 
Long ago an old prophet wrote : "The wilderness 
and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the 



MAN THE MONARCH. 121 

desert shall bud and blossom as the rose." Nor is 
this all a mere figure of speech. 

Science applied will make the earth more produc- 
tive ; it will drain the marshes and irrigate the desert 
places ; it will analyze the soils, supply their lack of 
essential ingredients, and check their waste. It is now 
detecting great values in many places in that which 
has been deemed useless. Our most choice fruits 
and cereals have come from w r ild progenitors which 
would not be recognized by us were we to see them 
in their native state. 

The greatest fact in the history of the world is the 
existence of man, the monarch. 



122 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL 7 WRIT. 



CHAPTER IX. 

• WHAT IS LIFE? 

¥E do not mean by this beading what is the Chris- 
tian life, or the animal life, or the life of man, but 
what is life in itself — its extent, its results — whether 
of man or beast, insect, vegetable, or monad ? There 
are some things which are quite difficult to define, 
and life is one of them. Dictionary-makers, scien- 
tists, philosophers, and theologians alike have endeav- 
ored to state in a few words, and as comprehensively 
as possible, the meaning of life, but with what success 
the reader must judge for himself. Our great stand- 
ard lexicographer defines it to be " the state of an 
animal or plant in which the organs are capable of 
performing their functions." He then gives us as 
equivalents the words, " animate existence," " vital- 
ity," and also the " time during which this state con- 
tinues, either in general, or in an individual instance ; as 
in the life of a tree or a horse." But it mav be said 
that this definition applies with equal pertinency to 
decay, which goes on after life is extinct. 

According to Professor De Blainville, " Life is the 
twofold internal movement of composition, at once 
general and continuous." 

Herbert Spencer, in seeking a definition of life, 
says, " It is difficult to find one that does not include 
more than is necessary, or which does not exclude 
something that should be taken in." He also tells us 



WHAT IS LIFE? 123 

that it is the " co-ordination of actions," but he fur- 
thermore observes, " Like the others, this definition in- 
cludes too much, for it may be said of the solar system, 
with its regularly recurring movements and its self- 
balancing perturbations, that it also exhibits ' co-ordi- 
nation of actions.' " 

Professor G. H. Lewes defines life to be " a series of 
definite changes, both of structure and composition, 
which takes place within the individual without de- 
stroying its identity." 

Dr. Carpenter tells us that "the life of man or of 
any of the higher animals essentially consists in the 
manifestation of forces of various kinds, of which the 
organism is the instrument." 

If the reader does not know what life is from the 
foregoing definitions the following will not help the 
case any, though it comes from a very high scientific 
source. This learned definition is as follows : "'Life 
is the definite heterogeneous combination of definite 
heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and succes- 
sive, in correspondence with eternal co-existence and 
sequence." 

Thomas Carlyle calls life an " infinite mystery." 

We are not going to undertake a task in which so 
many have failed, namely, to define life. The great 
Teacher asked, " Is not the life more than meat?" — 
more than the food which sustains it — " and the body 
than raiment ? " — more than the clothing that covers 
it. Suffice it to remark that life is the most wonder- 
ful thing in the universe. Let us ask the reader to 
consider some of the many forms which life puts on — 
its universality and some of its characteristics. 

We know that the time was when there was not on 



124 FACT AND FICTION- IN HOLY WRIT. 

this whole earth a solitary living being of any size, 
vegetable or animal — a time, as we have shown, when 
the earth, if not a cloud of fire-mist, was an incandes- 
cent globe of .matter. Then all the waters now on 
the earth, in rivers, lakes, and oceans, were floating 
around it in thick cloud-masses through which the 
rays of the sun could not penetrate. 

Then it was that the earth was " without form and 
void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." 
But it cooled off, and in the cooling-off process the 
crust was formed, and as it shrank its wrinkles became 
our mountains and valleys ; then the rain descended 
from the clouds and formed our rivers, lakes, and 
oceans. 

But when did life begin, and how did it begin ? 
There was a distinct beginning of life. Mere nature 
had not the pow r er to generate life. We hear much 
said in these times about germs, vital points, and so 
on, as if all things had been developed up from these 
so-called beginnings of life. Suppose w r e admit it all, 
and conclude that the present order of creation began 
away back with these germs, atoms, and molecules; 
nevertheless, who created the molecules ? They, too, 
must have had a beginning. When God interposes 
directly in the affairs of this world, or in human life, 
we call it a miracle. Creation, therefore, is a miracle, 
and yet a miracle may be but some manner in which 
God works of which we know nothing, only a higher 
form of nature. To say that life began spontaneously 
is no answer. It could not have caused itself, for 
nothing can act before it exists ; therefore it must 
have been caused. 

Life began in a very low form. The first living 



WHAT IS LIFE? 125 

being was, undoubtedly, a mere vital point ; but it did 
not create itself. 

This is not a treatise on exact, science, and therefore 
we shall not discuss the subject of protoplasm and 
attempt to explain the mysterious Eozoon of the 
Laurentian granites. But I desire to bring before the 
reader some of the great facts of life simply. "We 
find in the earth, in the waters, and in almost every 
tiling microscopic beings called infusoria, or, to use a 
better term, microzoa, known to have been the very 
lowest forms of animal existence. Yet even in this 
world of invisible things there is a difference ; they 
are all small beyond the ken of the naked eye, pos- 
sibly, and yet there is often, as much difference of size 
between varieties of animalcules as there is between a 
mouse and a horse or elephant. There are beings so 
minute that, placed in the most delicate scales which 
human ingenuity can construct, tens of thousands of 
them would make no impression of weight whatever. 

Let us look at some of those that inhabit a drop of 
stagnant water. They will be found to range in di- 
mension from the twenty-thousandth to the forty- 
thousandth part of an inch. But for this wonderful 
instrument, the microscope, these creatures never 
would have come within the range of human vision. 
There is one very remarkable species to which the 
scientists have given the name JVavicule. 

Upon examination it appears to be incased in an 
armor of flint, and though so cumbered can walk 
about on its twenty or thirty legs with as much ease 
as a soldier on dress parade or armed for battle. If 
it be watched for five or six hours, which is a large 
part of the whole life of an animalcule, we shall dis- 



126 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

cover a very thin transparent line spreading across it 
in some direction or other. The line becomes more 
and more visible and grows wider every minute. At 
last the little fellow begins to manifest violent con- 
vulsions ; the body splits asunder, and two new beings 
are formed out of the one. This curious animal has 
something like a hundred stomachs, and its month, 
which is situated near one extremity, is surrounded 
by a number of almost invisible tentacula, with which 
it grasps its food ; but as soon as the transparent line 
appears, which denotes its approaching dissolution, or 
rather division, into two, as another mouth will be 
needed, another is seen sprouting from the other ex- 
tremity, and is ready to perform its functions as soon 
as the separation is effected. The navicule comes to 
maturity at the age of twelve hours, and under ordi- 
narilv favorable conditions divides itself into two 
every twelve hours. It propagates its species accord- 
ing to a geometrical ratio, and at the end of one 
month such is the result of geometrical progression 
that w r ere there no checks to their increase a single 
navicule would have produced over eight hundred 
millions of living beings. There are other species of 
these infinitesimal creatures that split themselves into 
sixteen instead of two in the same space of time, which 
would give us sixteen times eight hundred millions 
in the same length of time. What wonderful proc- 
esses are going forward all about us in this universe 
of living organisms, and all employed by the great 
Architect ! 

A Brahman, wdiose religious faith forbade him to 
destroy animal life in food, was shown by means of a 
microscope that in every drop of water and in every 



WHAT IS LIFE? 127 

grain of rice he necessarily consumed hundreds of 
living creatures. Seizing the instrument, he dashed 
it upon the earth, breaking it into fragments and 
exclaiming, "Where is your theory now?" But 
the shattering of the wonderful instrument did not 
annihilate the life it brought to light. 

Life is emphatically the law of nature, life in in- 
conceivable profusion and infinite variety. It is more 
than fiction or poetry to say that there is a world of 
life in each forest leaf. 

Every step we take, every cup of water we drink — 
nay, in every breath of air we inhale — it is said we un- 
avoidably destroy countless thousands of lives, and if 
so it only proves that the great globe is a vast ware- 
house packed to overflowing with living organisms, 
and with scarce an inch to spare. Wherever there is 
matter there is life in endless, exhaustless — w r e had 
almost said reckless — profusion. Life is every- where. 
The stagnant pool in the woods is a world in itself 
filled with fascinating interest. Its w T aters teem with 
myriads of living beings of varied and curious forms 
which only the microscope can reveal. Some are 
naked, others are protected by shells. They resemble 
stars, boats, trumpets, wheels, rods, etc., and some- 
times they look like fruits, necklaces, flasks, and so 
forth. There is one which resembles a cup, and is 
called the " Flower Cup," being in the likeness of a 
crystal vase containing what looks like the blossom 
plant. So small is this living organism that thirteen 
millions may swim in a drop of water! They have 
eyes, a muscular structure, and nervous system. They 
move about independently, and some have been seen 
with claws with which to grasp objects. A few 



128 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

species are large enough to be seen by the naked eye, 
and one such, called the Stentor, because of its trumpet 
shape, is particularly ferocious, ever devouring the 
weaker kinds about it. It is not mere poetry to say 
that these microscopic beings are, in fact, "more 
numerous than the sands upon the sea-shore." Man 
has only just begun to invade the dominions of the 
bacilli and learn of their habits. The different 
species may be numbered by thousands. Some are 
pathogenic, or disease-producing. Ulcers, boils, and 
other diseases are caused by different species. There 
is the bacillus of typhoid fever, now well understood ; 
the bacillus of pneumonia, tuberculosis, cholera, lock- 
jaw, etc. A French physician, to test their genuine- 
ness, took a mass of a certain kind and rubbed his arm 
thoroughly with it. He was rewarded in a few hours 
with a held of pus which covered his whole arm. 
Billions of these little living creatures are present 
every- where in all flesh, earth, water, and air; but 
only a few are the foes of animal life. They play an 
important part in all animal organisms either for good 
or evil. Many of them are non-pathogenic — their ex- 
istence is necessary to health in the same way that 
some insects are serviceable to farmers and horticult- 
urists. Among them are many beautiful growths. 
Yiew T ed in masses as the pure cults are grown and 
stained, they are visible to the naked eye, so abundant 
do they become after a few hours. One of the pret- 
tiest of the nonpathogenic bacilli is that of the 
" bleeding heart." It forms a growth of a brig] it red 
color and owes its name to superstition. The early 
churchmen often found that bread left on the altar 
after being blessed became red. They imagined that 



WHAT IS LIFE? 129 

tins was the blood- of Christ dropped there by divine 
grace, and regarded it as a good omen. When milk 
turns blue in an hour or two it is due to a species of 
bacilli, a swarm of which will enter a creamery and 
attack all the milk in sight at once. The German 
peasants a few years ago were greatly alarmed at this 
phenomenon, and threw all the milk so turned away, 
thinking it diseased. It was as harmless as any. 

More interesting even than these are the swarms of 
minute diatoms — creatures of a vegetable nature — 
which are chiefly remarkable for the elaborate beauty 
of their shells. The latter are bi valvular, like those of 
a mussel. Some are like little boxes exquisitely made ; 
others resemble boats, hearts, dominoes, etc. There 
is one sort that has been called the " Shield of Achil- 
les," because each half of its disk-shaped shell is cut 
in concentric circles, with a complicated tracery of 
designs. In many varieties the valves seem ornament- 
ed with so fine a lace-work that to distinguish the pat- 
terns is considered the best possible test of the power 
of a microscope. Great and fathomless indeed are 
the mysteries of nature ! 

And hardly has our reason recovered from the ef- 
fects of these astounding disclosures when it is again 
overwhelmed by the endless variety of genera and 
species with which organic nature abounds. 

" When natural history completes her catalogue of 
living organism and confesses in despair that her rude 
skill cannot classify the finer distinctions of being, 
that her grasp cannot compass the great circle of life, 
then geology comes forward to add to our bewilder- 
ment, and, opening the thickly packed laminae of the 

Stone volume, reveals to our view numberless fossil 
9 



130 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

forms of beings ranging from mere infusoria to the 
gigantic monsters whose remains are preserved in the 
rocks and have long been extinct, and of which the 
very types are no more." Who can count what the 
great God and Father has created ? But through all 
this law of life there runs a plan and purpose most 
apparent. Nothing has been created in vain ; the 
meanest insect, worm, or polyp, as surely as the most 
useful and beautiful animal which man has domesti- 
cated, lives for a purpose. We may not be wise 
enough to understand why so many different beings 
have a place on earth, basking in the same sunlight, 
breathing the same air with man ; but they do exist, 
they have been formed for some good and wise pur- 
pose, and that is often to serve man, who is the image 
of God. 

There are plants as well as animals so minute as to 
be invisible to the naked eye. They are of uniform 
and simple structure, and are justly regarded as form- 
ing the base of the vegetable kingdom. But notwith- 
standing their lowly position in the scale of being 
they display an infinite variety of the most exquisite 
forms and finely sculptured surfaces, so that their 
study affords as much scope for the powers of observa- 
tion as does the starry vault itself, which is patent to 
our sense of sight. There is the so-called " Red Snow 
Plant," which long puzzled the explorers of northern 
regions. This microscopic vegetable gives a blood-red 
color to Alpine and arctic snows. It was seen by Cap- 
tain Ross in his first arctic journey to spread over 
a vast extent of territory. There were also combined 
with this plant some minute infusorial animals, which 
acquired the same color from feeding on it. 



WHAT IS LIFE? 131 

The Red Sea takes its name, in fact, from the color 
of its waters, which are filled with animalcule of a 
similar species to those just spoken of. Not only 
the waters and the snow-surfaces of the North, but 
great masses of rock, are tinged with this same color 
from the imprisoned dead forms of microscopic 
beings. Their abundance exceeds all possible human 
calculation. Think of a living being so small that 
forty thousand laid in a straight line would not reach 
over one inch in length ! Rocky strata are formed by 
them in places from twenty to forty feet thick, and 
covering vast areas of country. We boast of our 
power in rearing great buildings, pyramids, and monu- 
ments ; but wdien we see animals almost atomic laying 
down great rocky formations that serve as foundations 
for continents, and rearing walls for harbors of greater 
strength and greater size than the mightiest structures 
ever undertaken by man, one is indeed impressed 
with the works of God. I do not know that I can 
make more emphatic this idea of minuteness combined 
with power than I have done in the foregoing state- 
ments ; but it has been ascertained that seventy-five 
millions of these creatures would not exceed a grain 
in weight. The rocks which underlie the city of 
Berlin, in Prussia, have been ascertained to be a vast 
deposit of infusorial shells. These atomic creatures 
are in the ocean and in the earth. They enter the 
bodies of men and of other animals — circulating in 
the blood, accumulating on the teeth in the form of 
tartar, and as trichina spirales devouring the flesh and 
causing death. 

Rocks that belong to the most ancient epochs of the 
globe, and which contain strata of vast magnitudes, 



132 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLT WRIT. 

are but the sepulchers of these dead forms. Every 
grain of dust almost may be said to have been once 
endued with life. 

But all are not infusoria. We have a species of 
mollusk known as the Nummulite — so named from its 
resemblance to coin — which are of more ample size. 
They have combined to produce lofty chains of 
mountains, and, though very small, they are not alto- 
gether microscopic ; indeed, compared with those with 
which w^e have been speaking they may be called 
giants. The Arabian chain of mountains which ex- 
tends along the valley of the Nile was built up by 
them. They indeed, rather than Pharaoh, built those 
great pyramids which have been the wonder of the 
ages. Take the pyramid of Cheops, well called the 
" great pyramid," or by way of distinction the pyramid. 
It is the oldest, and most likely the largest, human 
structure in the world, yet it is insignificant when com- 
pared with the mountains which God has reared be- 
neath the dome of the skies. There it stands and has 
stood for four or five thousand years. It was old when 
Jerusalem was in its glory, when Rome was rising in- 
to power, when Homer sang, when David reigned. Its 
base originally covered thirteen acres and it rose to a 
height of four hundred and fifty feet. It is computed 
to have contained about seven million tons of solid 
masonry before it was mutilated by the hand of the 
spoiler. Greek, Roman, and Saracen vandals have 
preyed upon it, stripping off its polished red granite 
casing with which to enrich their mosques and pal- 
aces. Herodotus was informed that a hundred thou- 
sand workmen changing every three months were 
constantly employed for ten years in constructing the 



WHAT IS LIFE f 183 

causeway for the conveyance of the huge blocks of 
stone used in its construction, and then another twenty 
years in building the great pyramid itself. There it 
stands, a monument to human power, industry, and 
ambition. The thought impresses us. But back of 
this there was another power, even more impressive 
— the power of the infinitesimal nummulite, the little 
being that under God's direction built the great Ara- 
bian chain of mountains. They are so small as to re- 
semble lentil seeds, for which they were sometimes 
mistaken by the early Greek and Roman travelers. 
These little creatures often have had more to do in 
building up the earthy structures than the huge ani- 
mals. We ask, then, Who built the pyramids? and 
are answered, Pharaoh ; but another answer is, The 
nummulites ; so that the pyramid is at once the tomb 
of dead nummulites and dead kings. On the other 
hand, there are mollusks in the sea whose shells are so 
large that they have been used for bath-tubs. 

We cannot go farther in this subject here than simply 
to say that these living beings have filled the waters 
of the lakes, rivers, ponds, and seas, from the invisible 
monad to the great sea-monsters, the shark, the whale, 
the serpent; they have filled the air and nested and 
propagated in the sands ; they have feasted as para- 
sites on every living thing ; they have served God in 
a way almost beyond our finite comprehension. 



184 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 



CHAPTEE X. 

LIFE IN LARGER FORMS. 

LET us now turn and look at life on the surface of 
the earth, life in larger form, for all living beings 
are not microscopic. The world is a great theater for 
animal activity and display. Of the myriads of the 
human species we shall speak elsewhere. Vast num- 
bers of wild and ferocious beasts crowd the jungles, 
roam through the forests, and wander over the plains 
of both the Old "World and the New; but they are 
destined to become entirely extinct before the on- 
marching of civilization. The deer of our mountains 
are fast disappearing, and the buffaloes of our prai- 
ries are now never seen where not very long ago they 
abounded in great numbers. The bear, the panther, 
the wolf, and many other species of animals, untamed 
and untamable, are slowly but surely fading out. 
The elephant, the hippopotamus, and hyena once in- 
habited the British Isles ; but they are all gone, and in 
like manner will they be exterminated in Africa and in 
India in time. The birds, too, how vast their numbers ! 
what variety in size, color, and plumage ! Here we 
have the majestic eagle, there the humming-bird ; now 
birds of song, and then fierce birds of prey ; they are 
every-where, in forest and grove, bright, beautiful 
creatures of God. 

What cheer they put into the world! How sweet 
their vesper and matin warblings ! God has sent 



LIFE IN LARGER FORMS. 135 

them with their thrilling notes and gay feathers to 
serve him and us and to be happy themselves. 

"Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, 
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your 
heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much 
better than they ? " Let us learn from them a lesson 
of trust. Then consider, too, this great variety of 
domestic animals; how they serve us, not only by 
their labor, but by furnishing us clothing and food as 
well. That kindly servant, the horse, is ever expend- 
ing his life-force for man, in turning the furrows to 
prepare for the harvest, in drawing the loads and car- 
rying the burdens of life. To name all the animal 
uses would fill a volume. It is enough to say that 
there is life every-where, on land, in the sea, and in 
the air. 

But let us turn to the sea, the " great, wide sea, 
wherein are things creeping, innumerable, both small 
and great beasts." The^sea affords scope to uncounted 
myriads of living beings, ranging from the enormous 
whale to microscopic polyps, transparent as the water 
in which they swim, and seen only by the light of the 
phosphoric gleam which they emit. 

It is a well-established principle in nature that ani- 
mal life is sustained by vegetable life, while vegetable 
life is supported by the inorganic or mineral. The 
vegetable is required to change the mineral constitu- 
ents of the surrounding media into suitable nourish- 
ment, hence the "herb" was first created. How, 
then, is this exuberant animal creation in the sea main- 
tained? God has amply provided for the support of 
all these creatures in a manner most wonderful to 
contemplate. In the sea there are fish which are 



136 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

flesh-eating, and indeed the3 T devour each other, for, 
like the great financiers, the " big fish eat the little 
ones." The ocean is filled with a species of vegeta- 
tion called Algae. They are regular plants which 
have roots, stems, branches, flowers, and seeds. They 
are of various colors and sizes. Spread out on paper 
and preserved in albums they are among the most 
beautiful specimens in our cabinets. In them God 
has prepared food for the fishes of the sea, and, 
though designed for that purpose mainly, lie could 
just as well create them in conformity to the laws of 
beauty as to give them any other aspect. One often 
sees in the waters of the ditch by the roadside a green 
scum or covering, from which it is quite natural to turn 
away, regarding it as a sort of death-breeder, the be- 
getter of malarial poison. If we examine such a 
pool filled with a green silken mass it is easy to trace 
the beads of oxygen on the submerged threads or see 
the gas collect in bubbles all over it. This " scum," as 
it is called, is not a scum, but a vegetable growth, a 
positive benefit to the atmosphere, for it is a producer 
or eliminator of oxygen. The general uses of these 
minute plants all over the world are very great in the 
aggregate, and are worthy of Him who has appointed 
even the meanest of his creatures something to do 
for the good of others. There are thousands of spe- 
cies of aqueous plants in the waters of our lakes and 
ponds on which their inhabitants feed. Whether on 
sea or land the provisions for sustaining life are equal 
to the life itself. The great Father cares even for 
the insect, and whv should man distrust him? 

But what extremes are seen in nature ! On the one 
hand such minute beings, and then on the other such 



LIFE IN LARGER FORMS. 137 

large ones. This is true especially of the sea, where, 
swimming in the same element, there are atomic living 
creatures invisible to the naked e t ye, and in the same 
waters whales have been taken measuring from fifty 
to one hundred feet in length, and weighing in some 
instances two hundred tons ! Living animalcules 
were found by Sir James Ross on masses of floating 
ico in the polar seas, in seventy-eight degrees south 
latitude. They have also been brought up from a 
depth of twelve thousand feet in the ocean from under 
a pressure of three hundred and seventy-five atmos- 
pheres. Every river and pond abounds with living 
microscopic beings, while in the ocean they are some- 
times so numerous as to create a luminous foam. 

The sea is a vast storehouse of life. We have con- 
sidered the microscopic world, which includes the 
sea-w T aters. " The sea has a whole world of life in 
itself. It spreads its table first of all for its own chil- 
dren. ... It is said that the life in the sea far ex- 
ceeds all that exists out of it. There are more than 
twenty-five thousand distinct species of living beings 
that inhabit the ocean waters. There are more than 
eight thousand species offish, and some of these swarm 
in such innumerable millions that often they move in 
columns that are several leagues in width and many 
fathoms thick ; and this vast stream of life continues 
to move past the same given point for whole months 
together. Incredible numbers of them are taken from 
the sea ; in Norway four hundred millions of a single 
species in a single season, in Sweden seven hundred 
millions, and by other nations number without num- 
ber ! But those that are taken bear only a small pro- 
portion to those that remain of the same species, 



138 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

while the whole of these species themselves are but a 
portion of the entire population of the larger marine 
life ; and this entire population of larger life, again, 
is but a drop in the bucket compared to the various 
forms of microscopic and animalcular life with which 
immense tracts of the ocean are filled. These ani- 
malcules are some of them so small that it would 
take forty thousand of them to measure an inch in 
length, and so closely crowded together that a large 
drop of water contains five hundred millions — nearly 
one third as many as there are human inhabitants on 
the whole globe. 

" It is not necessary to ask whether all this infini- 
tude of life is meant for the use of man or whether 
it has any thing whatever to do in promoting his com- 
fort or providing his food. It is certain that many 
of the larger forms of marine life are intended for 
his benefit and are fitted for his use. Whole tribes 
of men derive almost their entire sustenance from the 
sea. The inhabitants of the polar regions draw their 
support more from this source than from all others 
combined. The same is true of the savage tribes on 
many of the islands of the Pacific and along some of 
the shores of the continents. Even civilized lands 
levy immense contributions on the life of the sea. 
Many thousands of vessels are employed in taking 
fish of various kinds from its waters, and uncounted 
millions of them are sent into every part of the world ; 
so that the sea is full of God's riches, if we consider 
it only as a vast store-house of food for man. 

"But all the life of the sea does not need to be de- 
signed for man in order to explain its use. Life is its 
own use, and wherever it exists and in proportion as 



LIFE IN LARGER FORMS. 139 

it exists it is in itself considered the proof and illus- 
tration of the goodness of God. It is one of the no- 
ble uses of the sea, therefore, that it furnishes the 
dwelling-place for such an inconceivable immensity 
of life. It is even more full of God's goodness than 
it is of his power ; for while the latter requires larger 
masses for its exhibition the former is best seen bv 
examining the minutest portion. Nothing is more 
powerless than a single drop of water, and yet. by 
placing this single drop under the microscope we dis- 
cover the character of vast masses of the ocean and 
learn that in every one of these little globes of inhab- 
ited sea-water there is literally a whole continent of 
happy beings that draw their existence from God, 
wait upon him for food, and receive their daily sus- 
tenance at his hand." * 

The earth, we know, is the principal source of food 
for the vegetable creation, whether it be the micro- 
scopic plant or the giant conifer, and, passing through 
the vegetable process, becomes the indirect source 
of the animal sustenance. And right here, when we 
reach the point of organization, do we see the most 
apparent manifestation of the supernatural. What 
power is this which takes dead matter, lime, silica, 
carbon, etc., and lifts them up into such diversified 
forms ? Analyze the woody stem of the tree or 
shrub, the leaf, the flower, the fruit, and what have 
we ? Only dead, inert matter, but in which there 
was a something we call life, something so subtile 
as to elude the most delicate tests of the chemist. 
Touch it, and it is gone. The tree dies because the 
ax girdles it or a worm gnaws its heart; some blight 
*Dr. Leonard Swain, in Bibliotheca Sacra. 



140 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

conies down on the field and the crop withers ; that 
divine something we call life departs. The animal is 
equally mysterious. Subject its body to the same 
analysis, and you find iron, lime, phosphorus, etc., dead, 
inert matter; but the life-principle is gone. That 
which filled it, moved it, gave it form and beauty, can- 
not be brought under the eye — it is invisible only as 
seen in its results. We see the beauty of the rose, 
and are delighted with its rich fragrance ; we are im- 
pressed with the magnificence of the tree beneath 
whose spreading branches we recline on a hot summer 
day ; but who ever saw the life of the tree ? We can 
see the millionth part of a grain of matter under the 
microscope ; but what shape, what color is life ? We 
look into the faces of our friends, our neighbors, our 
children ; we see the sparkle of the eye and the flush 
of the cheek ; they make an impression on us we 
never forget ; we know them ; but who ever saw a 
human soul? Who can tell us all about the peculiar 
form or complexion of the life within the body ? Life, 
whether of nomad, worm, man, or angel, is invisible 
to mortal eye. " No man hath seen God at any 
time." In the great hereafter we may have a power 
of spiritual vision by which the invisible may appear 
and we shall see as we are seen. Whence came this 
life-force ? Surely matter did not spring at one 
bound spontaneously into all such myriad and beau- 
tiful forms ; for in all there is such order and through 
all such variety that the mind acting normally must 
see the finger-prints of a supreme Intelligence. 



LIFE— A STUDY. 141 



CHAPTER XL 

LIFE — A STUDY. 

BUT life is not limited to the animal. "Weigh the 
vegetation raised above the surface of the earth, 
in the air, ranging in height from a few inches to 
several hundreds of feet. How enormous the weight 
when we consider that a single good-sized tree would 
have a pressure of several tons! All this matter of 
the tree is from the earth and the air. What power 
lifted it out of the earth ? Life. Life, then, is a force 
which began in the beginning and is constantly 
operating through all nature. When a man raises a 
weight from the ground he does it not by muscle, 
but by the life-force within him. 

Life is persistent ; one codfish by its natural in- 
crease without check in a half-dozen years would, to 
keep the figures within bounds, stock all the seas and 
oceans on the globe so completely that there would 
not be left a yard of space for any thing else. A 
single kernel of corn in ten or fifteen years would 
cover the entire surface of the planet. One grain of 
wheat, unchecked in twelve years, would furnish a 
food supply for the whole human family during a 
man's life-time. The small and delicate, almost in- 
visible fern-seed, unchecked in its growth, would 
completely mat the entire earth in six years. If 
oysters w^ere to increase in the same ratio they would 
pack the ocean solid in less than a decade or two. 



142 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLT WRIT. 

There is one species of river-fish so very prolific 
that, according to the learned Madie, in twenty-four 
years, it increases so enormously, it would outweigh 
all the planets of the solar system. I have spoken 
elsewhere of microscopic animals and of their enor- 
mous power of propagation; but here is the little 
plant-louse — the aphis so much dreaded by the gar- 
dener ; one of these tiny creatures is estimated to 
produce in four of its generations of sixteen days 
more than five thousand millions of its kind ; and 
in twenty generations aphides unchecked would 
cover every green thing on the earth. These mi- 
nute insects may not be understood ; they are called 
pests ; but in the economy of nature they have their 
mission. 

If we enter the mechanic's shop or factory, where 
there are many tools and complicated machinery, and 
look about us over all these implements, we perceive 
that they are all of some use, and each has a purpose 
peculiar to itself ; all work together in harmony to- 
ward an end, however conflicting it mav seem to us. 
We do not think for a moment that any one of these 
implements has been constructed without some spe- 
cial use, nor that any one thing has been made inten- 
tionally defective, much less for evil. Thus it is in 
nature, " all are but parts of one stupendous whole," in 
which there is unity of design, all working toward some 
ultimate end beyond our sight and comprehension. 

Wonderful as are the animal and plant worlds, 
none impress us more than the insect world. We are 
told that the wasps drove armies from the battle- 
fields of Palestine: "I sent the hornet before you 
which drove them out before you, even the two 



LIFE— A STUDY. 143 

kings of the Amorites ; but not with thy sword nor 
thy bow." A king besieging a city in the East with 
Ins army of elephants and men was driven from his 
siege by gnats so small as scarcely to be visible to the 
naked eye, and yet they were more powerful than 
elephants and men. In the war of the great re- 
bellion armies met and contended in awful conflict. 
There were wasps and hornets enough in the " Wil- 
derness " of Virginia to have driven both Grant and 
Lee out if they had been concentrated. Vast coun- 
tries have been swept by locusts as by a " maddened 
holocaust of fiery vengeance." The sun has some- 
times been obscured by them. From authoritative 
reports we are informed that one season in the Rocky 
Mountains locusts numbering, it was supposed, more 
than two hundred and fifty thousand millions passed 
over a given area in six hours. Of course they were 
not counted, but estimated. Imagine such a current 
sweeping on for several days ! What wonder that in 
the olden times " the grasshopper was a burden." 

The insect world is a great study. We span our 
streams with our suspension-bridges, and call the 
world's attention to these giant works which we have 
wrought ; and they are very great. But does it ever 
occur to us that we are really surpassed by the little 
spider in both calculation and perfection. The body 
of every spider contains four little masses pierced 
with a multitude of imperceptible holes, each hole 
permitting the passage of a single thread. All the 
threads to the amount of a thousand to each mass 
join together when they come out and make the 
single thread with which the spider spins its web ; so 
that what we call a spider's thread consists of more 



144 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

than four thousand strands united. Leuwenhoek, 
by means of the microscope, observed spiders, no 
larger than a grain of sand, which spun threads 
so fine that it took four thousand of them to equal 
the size of a single hair. 

This world of ours is full of wonders ; the micro- 
scope reveals them as fully as the telescope. We 
have been studying for ages how to fly through the 
air by means of air-ships or balloons, and yet the in- 
sect we crush with contempt has spun its diving-bell 
and descended to the bottom of the stream, or made 
its little balloon and sailed away through the air with 
safety and delight, gathering up its parachute and de- 
scending at its own will. Wonders, did I say? Nat- 
ure is full of them. There are four thousand and 
forty-one muscles in a common caterpillar. Hooke 
discovered fourteen thousand mirrors in the eye of a 
drone ; and to effect the respiration of a carp thir- 
teen thousand three hundred arteries, veins, and bones 
are necessary. 

We have our schools of art and science, from which 
our children are graduated with honor after years of 
pupilage. But not one of these can be called schol- 
arlv who has not attended the school of nature and 
learned from insects and animals, often despised, the 
highest wisdom. 

Long ago the patriarch of Uz counseled his friends 
to learn of the beasts, the earth, and the fishes. We 
often close our eyes against light of the greatest brill- 
iancy by neglecting this great field of instruction. 

There is a little insect known as the Teredo nava- 
les, of the family Pholadidce, which is sometimes also 
called the " ship-worm," because it perforates and lives 



LIFE— A STUDY. 145 

in timber. Its ravages are often terrible. It swarms 
in the seas in some regions of the globe, and but for 
the copper sheathing on vessels their destruction would 
be speedy and certain. In 1731 it was discovered that 
these little shell-fish had so riddled the timbers com- 
posing the dykes which protect Holland from the sea 
that the whole country was threatened with inunda- 
tion. 

Man has learned much even from insects; to a hint 
from one of them — the teredo — was due the invention 
of a machine by which was accomplished one of the 
most wonderful works of modern times — the excava- 
tion of the great tunnel under the Thames in England. 
Brunei, the celebrated engineer, was standing one day, 
nearly a century ago, in a ship-yard, it is said, watch- 
ing incidentally the movements of this destructive 
insect, the Teredo navales, when a brilliant thought 
occurred to him. He saw that this creature bored its 
way into the wood by means of a very extraordinary 
mechanical contrivance. Studying it thoughtfully, 
he found that it was covered in front by a pair of 
valvular shells ; that with its foot as a purchase it 
communicated a rotary motion and a forward impulse 
to the valves, which, acting upon the wood like a gim- 
let, penetrated its substance, and that as the particles 
of wcod were loosened they passed through a fissure 
in the foot and thence through the body of the borer 
to its mouth, where they were expelled. The famous 
boring-shield of Brunei was thus but an imitation, 
with some variations, of an insect almost microscopic. 

We are forced sometimes to seek the destruction of 

insects precisely as we protect ourselves against storms 

and winds. But we should never wantonly kill any thing 
10 



146 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL T WRIT. 

which the Infinite has seen fit to create. We cannot 
and ought not to annihilate any one family or species 
of insect unless we become wiser than the wisdom 
of nature. We should not invade their domain de- 
structively without knowing what we are doing. 
We may kill friends supposing they are enemies. 
The religion of Buddha forbade killing the smallest in- 
sect, as to destroy it would be to invade the govern- 
ment of the Creator — a sublime and wise idea. 

Insects are often enemies to each other — prey on 
each other, and so accomplish good even to man. It 
may be said to be the mission of the insect world to 
check the current of life and growth in nature. If it 
were not for their agency we can hardly tell what 
the fate of the world would be. And furthermore, 
they are ever-busy scavengers, and though they may 
annoy us by insinuating themselves into our dwell- 
ings, feeding on our crops and our clothing, some- 
times destroying them in whole or in part, let us not 
forget that He who planned the world and all things 
included in that plan the beings we call " pests." 
Only when we are certain that they are doing us 
harm are we warranted in destroying them. 

u When all the motions of the heavenly bodies have 
been reduced to the dominion of gravitation gravita- 
tion itself still remains an insolvable problem. Why 
it is that matter attracts matter we do not know ; 
we perhaps never will know. Science can throw 
much light upon the laws that preside over the de- 
velopment of life ; but what life is, and what is its 
ultimate cause, we are utterly unable to say. The 
mind of man, which can track the course of the comet 
and measure the velocity of light, has hitherto proved 



LIFE— A STUDY. 147 

incapable of explaining the existence of the minutest 
insect or the growth of the most humble plant. In 
grouping phenomena, ascertaining their sequences 
and their analogies, its achievements have been mar- 
velous ; in discovering ultimate causes it has abso- 
lutely failed. An impenetrable mystery lies at the 
root of every existing thing. The first principle, the 
dynamic force, the vivifying power, the efficient 
causes of those successions which we term natural 
laws, elude the utmost efforts of our research. The 
scalpel of the anatomist and the analysis of the chem- 
ist are here at fault. The microscope, which reveals 
the traces of an all-pervading, all-ordaining intelli- 
gence in the minutest globule, and displays a world 
of organized and loving beings in a grain of dust, 
supplies no solution of the problem. We know noth- 
ing, or next to nothing, of the relations of mind to 
matter, either in our own persons or in the world 
that is around us ; and to suppose that the progress 
of natural science eliminates the conception of a first 
cause from creation by supplying natural explana- 
tions is completely to ignore the sphere and limits to 
which it is confined." * 

* W. E. H. Leckey, M. A. 



148 FA CT AND FICTION IN EOL Y WRIT. 



CHAPTER XII. 

DEATH. 

HAYING spoken of that undefinable and myste- 
rious something we call life, let us now consider 
that other equally undefinable and mysterious some- 
thing we call death. In all the lower forms of living 
beings death is simply the antithesis of life ; for there 
is no pledge or sign of any existence to a mere animal 
beyond the moment of its dissolution. The Bible 
says that the " Spirit of the beast . . . goeth down- 
ward toward the earth." This can only refer to its 
physical death. With man also death is the antithe- 
sis of life so far as the body is concerned. But in his 
creation a higher gift was bestowed, a principle was 
"breathed into him " which differentiates him almost 
infinitely from all other terrestrial beings. " The 
spirit of a man . . . goeth upward." In the one 
case it is extinction ; in the other it is the " change 
that cometh." 

For a«;es mankind believed that human sin was the 
cause of universal death, that of animals as well as 
of men ; for had it not been written, " Death came by 
sin ? " This idea obtained its first hold, like some 
others, in an unscientific age, an age of too severe an 
interpretation of Scripture. 

The curse pronounced in Eden was taken in a 
literal rendering: " And the Lord said unto the ser- 
pent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed 



DEATH. 149 

above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; 
upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat 
all the days of thy life." To Adam he said : " Cursed 
is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat 
of it all the days of thy life ; thorns also and thistles 
shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the 
herb of the field : in the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of 
it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and unto dust 
shalt thou return." The serpent is here doomed, not 
as a serpent simply, but as the representative of Satan, 
the enemy of God and man. 

If Satan entered into a single serpent and used it 
for a bad purpose why should punishment be sent 
upon the whole serpent race for the misfortune of 
one of the species? No, let us not misjudge God by 
reading an allegory as literal history. As elsewhere 
in this book shown, the serpent has always crawled 
on its belly. One writer on Darwinism tells us that 
" serpents were once four-legged animals that moved 
about like lizards ; but through changes of habit they 
came to other and lower needs, so that their legs were 
no longer useful, and so shrunk away. They remain 
to show us how the species has been degraded from 
higher forms in the past." This theory rather sup- 
ports the Bible account of Eve and the serpent. Pos- 
sibly the intention was, if Darwinism be true, that 
these embryo legs were to u develop " in the long 
ages to come " by change of habit," and the serpent 
become a walking animal ; but the curse of God 
doomed the whole race of serpents to their present 
mode of locomotion. Nay, the curse was not on the 
dumb animal, but on the evil one it personated. The 



150 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

lesson is that sin must be cast down and out and 
righteousness must reign on the earth. 

Again we read : " Let the earth bring forth grass, 
the herb yielding seed, . . . whose seed is in itself, 
upon the earth : and it was so." The earth has brought 
forth herbs, thorns, weeds, thistles, from the beginning. 
It is according to God's plan in the creation that veg- 
etable life should precede and sustain animal life. 
The plant, tree, shrub, grass, should grow out of the 
soil, assimilating to themselves earthy matter and thus 
become food for the animal. Besides, the plant not 
only does this, but it sucks the carbon from the atmos- 
phere which enters into its own nature and life. 
What then has ever been the mission of weeds, thorns, 
thistles? To prepare the earth for animal life, to fit 
the atmosphere for animal lungs ; a$d to-day the 
noxious weeds we so much despise and labor so hard 
to exterminate serve the greatest purpose by their 
office, drawing the carbon out of the atmosphere, 
where, if it becomes too abundant, it is injurious to 
animal life, and putting it into the soil to enrich it 
and thus add to the earth's fertility. But in what 
sense was this a curse ? We answer, That which was 
no cause of vexation to the spirit of man in his purity 
becomes an aggravation to him after his alienation. 

To forfeit the life of God in the soul by an act of 
transgression is to break relations with every thing. 
Is it not so to-day ? The heart that is trustful and 
obedient to the commands of God will bear with far 
more sweetness of spirit the ills of life so common to 
all men. The change, therefore, was a relative one ; 
the labor which was delightful before became irksome 
afterward. 



DEATH. 151 

Death is just as much a law of our being as life. 
All life implies death ; it is only another birth. Every 
plant must die ; every animal organism must dissolve; 
it is a law of the universe which holds good every- 
where. 

" Life evermore is fed by death, 

In ocean, earth, and sky ; 
And that a rose may breathe its breath 

Something must die." 

Death is, then, a wise provision of God. But for 
death there could be no life. As has been shown be- 
fore, the vegetable dies to support the life of the an- 
imal. Animals feed on one another in an endless chain 
of succession. The very soil of our garden was once 
pregnant with life. Organized beings have filled the 
earth, the air, the seas. Death's dominions crown 
those of life. Cycles and circles characterize all of 
the works of nature. Life and death, growth and 
decay, are in perfect harmony with the progressive 
works of that operative wisdom which governs the 
universe. All life and all growth would superinduce 
universal ruin. These are the fundamental laws of 
nature, and they are above the control of human power. 
Man comes under the same law. His days are 
" swifter than a weaver's shuttle." We call this a 
figure of speech to indicate the shortness of life com- 
pared with eternal ages. 

But why should man die ? There is no scientific 
reason for death ; it rests on the plan, the purpose, 
and the power of God. Animals die because they are 
created to fill a mission in this world only. That 
man dies is because God wills it. Translation from 
this life to that which is to come without death was 



152 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

as possible to every man as it was to Enoch and Eli- 
jah. The sources of supply which perpetuate the 
bodily organs, renewing them once in seven years or 
less, do not become exhausted. There is just as much 
oxygen, lime, phosphorus, iron, etc., now as there ever 
was, out of which to build up tissues and preserve 
the physical human organization. The air is naturally 
as pure, the food as nutritive, the vital force in nat- 
ure as abundant, and the supplies as ample as they 
w r ere ages ago. Life is the same. The man of eighty 
years has the same consciousness, the same identity, 
he has always had. He can call up the thoughts and 
sayings and the forms and faces of his young child- 
hood perfectly. Why may he not live on forever 
physically ? There is only one answer — it is not God's 
will that he should do so. God does some things by 
what seems to us to be arbitrary will-power ; he wills 
things for reasons which are only known to himself, 
but which may yet be revealed to us. It is well that 
he orders our lives and governs them by a wise provi- 
dence. But other things are done by laws which he set 
in operation and which move on in the same line of 
action forever. 

"Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return, 5 ' 
w^as said of man, but might have been said of every 
mere beast that walked the earth ; for all of them are 
born to die, all turn to dust. Life unchecked would 
prove universal ruin. It carries an infinite power in 
its sway and requires the Infinite to arrest and control 
it, or turn it in a countervailing line in what we call 
death, which is but a conservative law or line of life 
itself. Every earthly being in its time must cease to 
live, and, as w^ays and means are essential to life and 



DEATH. 158 

growth, so by the same devising wisdom ways and 
means of death and decay must be provided by agen- 
cies adapted to that end. In man's case there w r as a 
meaning in the decree of death that could not attach 
to mere animals, for hope of immortality stirred his 
heart, and so the word death meant more to him. 
But what is death ? It is answered, Disorganization, 
disintegration, separation of soul and body, abatement 
of the life-force. The machine wears out. The time 
comes when the bones harden ; the muscles become 
stiff ; the cartilages turn to bone, and the soft mem- 
branes are converted into cartilage. The stomach 
ceases to digest food ; the whole fabric refuses to 
obey the mandates of the will, and the " silver cord 
is loosed ; the golden bowl is broken ; the pitcher is 
broken at the fountain, the wheel broken at the cis- 
tern." "We call it death. 

There are some fictions in the world, but there are 
many more facts ; and these are the things that are 
very certain. " It is appointed unto man once to 
die." Who doubts this ? Sixty human beings cease 
to breathe every minute, and pass through the gates 
to the " undiscovered country;" three thousand six 
hundred every hour; eighty-seven thousand every 
revolution of the earth. Within the circle of a year 
possibly thirty-four or thirty-five millions return to 
dust. 

Nothing is more certain than death. Furthermore, 
life, especially active, productive life, is very brief, 
though it may be prolonged " threescore and ten 
years," or even " fourscore years " or more. 

The real work of life must be crowded into a very 
short period. From seventy years subtract seven for 



154 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL 7 WRIT. 

almost unconscious childhood ; then take off ten more 
for the period of adolescence. Nature claims one 
third of our time for sleep ; think of a well man lying 
in bed for a quarter of a century in a state of uncon- 
sciousness ! And yet every man of seventy-five years 
has done this if he has not cheated Nature out of her 
dues. Now it results that our life-work must be done 
in about thirty-five years of daylight at most. There 
is certainly not much time for idleness in view of all 
these considerations. 

We are under the control of a Supreme Power. 
Atheism says "No God' 3 — only a "fortuitous con- 
currence of atoms " — only molecules which have 
combined in multitudinous and mysterious ways, and 
from these have come all things — trees, flowers, land- 
scapes, cyclones, electricity, oceans, stars, planets, man. 
" Only atoms, that is all," shouts the atheist. 

Well, if these molecules can combine and produce 
such wonderful and powerful entities as have been 
named they may possibly have formed some other 
things as well — a heaven for the righteous, a hell for 
the wicked. Which, let me ask, is preferable, God or 
molecules ? 

The death of the bodv is not the extinction of the 

t/ 

man. That which is so universal as belief in the here- 
after must have a real foundation in the "nature of 
things." No machine is made to destroy itself, though 
it may seem to wear out or rust out. Daniel Web- 
ster said : " It cannot be constitutional to destroy the 
constitution." Man's immortality is really not a ques- 
tion of dispute among intelligent people. In nature 
there is a change, but not destruction. Chicago 
burned, but not an atom of the matter in the vast acre- 



DEATH. 155 

ages of its solid masonry was destroyed. Men die and 
turn to dust, but life flows on. This wonderful life-force 
of which we have been speaking seems to be destroyed 
by death ; but is it ? Yegetation decays, plants, trees, 
die ; but by a law of nature they live in other plants 
and trees, that spring from the earth and air enriched 
by their decay. " Except a corn of wheat fall into 
the ground and die, it bideth alone ; but if it die, it 
bringeth forth much fruit." Animals die ; what be- 
comes of their extinct life ? 

We do not wonder much that some have at least 
asked if there may not be some life-sphere which ab- 
sorbs the vast aggregate of animal life. u There are 
more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of 
in our philosophy." But man is conscious ever of 
his superiority ; in him are intimations of the here- 
after, while revelation assures him of a beyond where 
there will be no death. 

We are informed by those who profess to know 
that the average length of human life is on the gain 
throughout the whole world, owing, it is presumable, 
to the " modern improvements " of civilized life. 
One cause of this lengthening doubtless lies in the 
more perfect understanding of the laws of life. 
Our city houses are better supplied with fresh air than 
formerly. Modern-built cities are not so compact as 
those of the olden times. Men have seen the advan- 
tages of parks and boulevards, where on foot or in 
vehicle the fresh, sweet air of heaven can be reached. 
There is nothing so health-giving as oxygen, by which 
is meant simply fresli air ; and besides there is noth- 
ing so cheap. Our earth is surrounded with it to a 
depth of forty or tifty miles. We all live at the 



156 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

bottom of this air sea ; and yet it is often excluded 
from our school- rooms, public halls, and churches. 
The latter have been constructed generally without 
any reference to ventilation. We have heard of an 
architect who, though he had planned thirty church 
edifices, admitted that he knew nothing about the 
laws of ventilation; he studied on space and lines of 
beauty. 

We almost studiously shut out this life-giving and 
invigorating element, go to sleep, and then charge it 
over to the account of the " dull sermon." Is it any 
wonder that sermons are sometimes dull ? 

The devil and the architects have conspired together 
to destroy Christianity by depriving the worshipers 
of fresh air ; and that they have not entirely suc- 
ceeded is only another proof of its divinity. An in- 
genious writer, speaking of this element, oxygen, tells 
us that as there are fifteen pounds weight on every 
square inch of the earth's surface it follows that 
there are three pounds of oxygen to the same area, 
and by a mathematical calculation it therefore is seen 
that the amount of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere 
would be represented by these figures: 1,178,158,- 
000,000,000,000 tons. And yet with all this abun- 
dance of pure oxygen in the air we often arrange our 
houses so as to exclude it as much as possible and 
breathe a mixture of carbonic acid gas in its stead. 
Often, in summer-time even, the windows are kept 
closed, blinds are shut, heavy curtains are drawn, lest 
the pure sunlight should chance to fall on the velvet 
carpet and change its colors a little, or lest some dust 
should settle on the furniture, or a few insects should 
find their way to the walls, or the delicate articles 



DEATH. 157 

of virtu should be marred ; but in the exclusion of 
these the much-needed air is also shut out. 

Our city parks are really ventilating apertures in 
the brick walls, and in this particular modern cities 
surpass those of former centuries. But even some of 
these modern improvements are only a re-appearance 
of ancient methods ; some arts have been lost and 
found again. God has not only given us a good supply 
of oxygen, but he gave some directions about its use 
in ancient times. We are informed that in the divine 
allotment of the cities of Israel a provision was 
specifically made in the forty-eight cities of the 
Levites for a circle of open ground surrounding each 
city of a thousand cubits breadth, which was intended, 
probably, for gardens and fruits, and also an exterior 
circle of two thousand cubits more, called the " field 
of the suburbs," for pasture, and most likely for 
recreation, both forming a large space which was 
expressly forbidden to be encroached upon in any sale 
of dwellings or alienation of property. 

" But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not 
be sold; for it is their perpetual possession."* Thus, 
for a people in that age, and a pastoral people at that, 
to have had such directions given them shows that 
the great Father had respect to the value of pure air 
and out-door recreation among his people. 

One cause, we think, of a great amount of ill- 
health, among American women especially, lies in a 
custom which in some way ought to be abolished. 
Women attend church in very large numbers rela- 
tively, and they go there as a rule well protected from 
the severe cold of winter, the temperature, possibly, 

* Lev. xxv, 34. 



158 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

not infrequently, near or below zero. They take their 
seats robed in heavy outside garments — shawl or cloak, 
bonnet, etc. The service lasts an hour and a half, in a 
close atmosphere, where the temperature varies from 
seventy to eighty degrees. Then, when the service 
is over, they return home through this wintry atmos- 
phere, and often a severe cold is the result. Is it any 
wonder ? Men do the same thing, only that a man can 
lay aside his overcoat and hat during service and can 
put them on again when it is ended. If any woman 
in the world can inaugurate a reform in this she will 
deserve public thanks. 

We do not expect to reach the patriarchal age, nor 
is it desirable to do so ; but it is possible to increase 
somewhat the average length of human life beyond 
what it is at present. 

It is our duty to live as long as we can ; for we are 
responsible for our bodies and for their proper care. 
Every habit that abridges life, every neglect of our 
physical being, whether from overwork, underwork, 
food or drink, involves a measure of accountability. 
We should see to it that we do not sin against our 
bodies, which St. Paul declares are the " temples of 
the Holy Ghost." What that great apostle once said 
to the Philippian jailer who was about to kill himself 
— " Do thyself no harm" — should be the regular and 
daily rule of every one's life. To the present, not 
less than the future, the words of the great Teacher 
have a significant application : " I am come that ye 
might have life, and have it more abundantly." 

General intelligence in a community operates in 
many ways in behalf of prolonging life. In the first 
place, while mere intellectual development does not 



DEATH. 159 

redeem the heart from sin, yet intellectual pursuits 
do favor morality and virtue, the want of which by 
leading to fatal indulgences, sends many to untimely 
graves. Intelligence favors general longevity by 
making people better acquainted with the laws of life ; 
and, furthermore, education furnishes the race with a 
knowledge of the various remedies which experience 
and skill have brought to light for the relief of human 
w T oe. Especially is this true in the department of sur- 
gery, where science can almost construct new organs. 
The value of statistics lies in the fact that " figures 
do not lie." A celebrated Belgian philosopher some 
time ago gave the subject a very careful review. He 
compared England and the Mexican State, Guanajuato, 
as representing the two extremes in the scale of civil- 
ization. In England he reckons one death in fifty- 
eight inhabitants ; in the Mexican State one in nine- 
teen inhabitants, b^ing three times as numerous in 
one as in the other in proportion. Life insurance 
tables tell the same story ; mortality among the poor 
and uneducated is greater than among the opposite 
grade, where the average age of the well-to-do is forty- 
two years, that of the poor being only thirty years. 
A recent German writer has made some curious ex- 
plorations in the great field of human longevity, and 
has given special attention to life as influenced by the 
learned professions, and comes to the conclusion that 
of all the various pursuits of mankind that of the clerical 
profession is most conducive to a "green old age." 
According to this writer, of one hundred clergymen 
forty-two lived to be seventy years old and upward ; 
in one hundred lawyers only twenty-nine reached 
that age ; and in one hundred artists only twenty- 



160 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

eight reached threescore and ten years ; while in the 
same number of physicians only twenty-four reached 
that point. 

With the advancing civilization of this age the 
rate of mortality proportionately decreases. In the 
seventeenth century the annual death record in Lon- 
don rose to twenty-one thousand. One hundred 
years later, though there was a great increase in the 
population, the number was but seventeen thousand. 
In the middle of the last century the yearly mortality 
was one in twenty; now it is only one in forty, having 
diminished fifty per cent. Similar interesting results 
are reached if we contemplate men in their different 
social positions. 

Of ten thousand persons in agricultural districts in 
England, where education was more universal, three 
thousand three hundred and fifty-three attained the 
age of forty years ; while of an equal number in man- 
ufacturing sections only nineteen hundred lived to 
that age. A comparison in France between sixteen 
hundred persons in high stations in life with two 
thousand in a section of Paris containing rag-men, 
street-sweepers, and day laborers showed a mortality 
twice as great among the latter as among the former. 

The tables of mortality show us some curious facts, 
as, for instance, that out of every one thousand men 
twenty die annually ; that the inhabitants of a city 
are renewed once in about thirty-five years; that the 
number of old men who die in cold weather is to the 
number of those who die in warm weather as seven 
to five. 

Only one in one hundred reaches the age of sixty ; 
only one in five hundred lives to be eighty years old. 



DEATH. 161 

The men able to bear arms form twenty-five per cent, 
of the inhabitants of a country. The proportion of 
the deaths of women and those of men is as one hun- 
dred to one hundred and eight. The probable duration 
or expectancy of a woman's life is sixty years ; but after 
that period the calculation is more favorable to women 
than to men. One quarter of all who are born die under 
seven years. Not more than one in nine thousand 
reaches one hundred years. Tall people live longer 
than short ones, and men live longer in elevated 
regions of the globe than they do in low, flat countries. 
Married people live longer than single ones. 

Under all the circumstances incident to even an at- 
tempted enumeration of populations among civilized 
nations, we cannot imagine how figures even approx- 
imating exactness could be obtained ; and yet it is 
stated by the statisticians, with seeming authority, that 
the annual deaths amount to 35,693,350, and that the 
births are many millions in excess of these, one writer 
placing the excess at over 300,000,000, which is only 
a vague estimate. The population of the earth is in- 
creasing, notwithstanding pestilences, famines, wars, 
and other limitations of life. We can easily see that 
at no vastly remote period the earth will be filled ; and 
if by any sanitary means the average age can be 
increased the sooner will the whole earth be inhabited. 
Had all men attained to the age of Methuselah there 
would not to-day be standing-room for any of us, and 

life would be a curse rather than a blessing. 
11 



162 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

LONGEVITY— THE PATRIARCHS. 

THE Bible gives an account of a class of men who 
are said to have attained to a very great age, 
varying, indeed, from three hundred and sixty-five 
years to nine hundred and sixty-nine years. When 
we speak of our "oldest inhabitant 55 we mean some 
one who has lived ninety or a hundred years ; but 
when the antediluvian talked about his " oldest inhab- 
itant 55 he referred to somebody whose life had spanned 
nearly a thousand years. As a matter of course, such 
a startling record could not pass unchallenged, for the 
people of modern times have no experience in such 
an enormous length of life. 

It would not seem unreasonable, however, to sup- 
pose that when the human race was in its infancy and 
the earth was to be peopled that a longer average life 
among men would be providentially provided for, 
precisely as some other things were intelligently ar- 
ranged. Science tells us that there was a time when 
carbonic acid, in the form of an invisible gas, was so 
abundant in the atmosphere of the earth that an air- 
breathing animal could not have lived, but that in 
the course of time this superabundance of the poison- 
ous element was removed and put into other forms, 
such as coal and limestone, etc., which to-day are used 
by mankind in their various industries, and without 
which the world would suffer. That there was plan 



L ONGE VITY— THE PA TRIAR CHS. 1 63 

in all tliis who can doubt ? This is but one of a thou- 
sand instances of design manifested in the affairs of 
this world. Could not the u All Father" regulate the 
life of man as easily as the conditions of matter ? There 
was plan in the one, why not in the other ? We must 
not rule God out of his own dominions as some peo- 
ple are trying to do. 

It is true that life was more simple, less artificial, 
then than now ; and some have thought this to be the 
reason of the longer lives of the patriarchs ; but this 
will not account for it. If thev lived as lono; as our 
English Bible declares it was because of a divine 
arrangement for a purpose in the order of things. 
But the time came when it was better for the world 
that the term of human life should be reduced ; what 
secondary causes were employed to effect the change 
we do not know — only the fact. Between Adam and 
Moses there are three distinct periods in the length 
of human life ; first, that from Adam to Noah, in 
which the shortest in the Bible record is that of 
Enoch, who died young, having only attained the age 
of three hundred and sixty-five years, and Methuselah, 
whose earthly existence extended through almost a 
millennium. The second period was that immediately 
following the flood — from Shem to Terah — in which 
the life-time dropped down on the average to three 
hundred and fifty years below that of the antedilu- 
vians. Shem lived six hundred years, Arphaxad four 
hundred and thirty-eight years, Serng only two hun- 
dred and tli^rty years. In the third period, begin- 
ning with Abraham, the length of human life was 
yet further diminished. Abraham lived to be one 
hundred and seventy-five years old, his son Isaac 



164 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

one hundred and eighty years old, Moses one hundred 
and twenty years. 

Over this question of patriarchal longevity there 
lias been a great amount of discussion, not only among 
theologians, but by men of the highest scientific at- 
tainment. Two notable English names may be men- 
tioned, Professor Owen and E. Harrold Brown, D.D., 
Bishop of Ely. The former enters his protest against 
the belief in the extreme longevity of the antedilu- 
vians contained in the book of Genesis, while the 
latter takes the ground that it is not only within rea- 
son, but that some very eminent physiologists have 
thought it not at all impossible. Professor Owen 
proceeds in his way to demonstrate the utter impossi- 
bility of any individual of the human species ever 
having lived to such a fabulous age. He calls the 
belief a superstition, and scorns the idea that these 
men lived beyond the average of " threescore years 
and ten," or, at most, a decade or two beyond. Then 
there came to the front Professor Erasmus Rask, of 
Copenhagen, who claims to have solved the whole 
theory by a new construction of the word rendered 
in our Englsh Bible year. The root of the Hebrew 
word really means repetition, or iteration, and may 
signify any recurring period, day, week, month, or 
year ; hence, instead of solar we are to understand 
lunar years — that is, months. 

His argument attempts to show that these ancient 
men were not sufficiently versed in astronomical sci- 
ence to be able to compute accurately the year of 
three hundred and sixty-five days, and thus inaugurate 
that period as the unit for measuring time, while he 
claims they could more easily determine the period of 



LONGEVITY— THE PATRIARCHS. 165 

the moon's orbital rotation. And so the professor 
thinks we may, without fear of maltreating the text, 
consider these so-called vears as months. 

It is not necessary to deal with the whole line of these 
long-lived men ; let us take Methuselah, the oldest one 
of the group, as an illustration. So we read, " And Me- 
thuselah lived a hundred eighty and seven years, and 
begat Lamech: and Methuselah lived after he begat La- 
mech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat 
sons and daughters : and all the days of Methuselah 
were nine hundred sixty and nine years : and he died."* 

The word year, we are told, does not mean a solar 
year of three hundred and sixty-five days, but a lunar 
year — a month, or two or more months, for some of 
the ancient people did reckon time in this way. 
When we consider the age at which this patriarch 
died this may seem reasonable. Methuselah lived 
nine hundred and sixty-nine months, or about eighty 
years and nine months, and died. He was just about 
the age of Horner, not quite so old as Dr. Franklin, 
who lived to be eighty-four years old. By this method 
of reckoning Adam died at seventy-seven years and 
six months, Noah at seventy-nine years and two 
months. Enoch only lived thirty years and five 
months, when u God took him." This mode of cal- 
culation makes the average life-term of the ten patri- 
archs from Adam to Noah just seventy-three years 
less one month. But there is another side to it : if 
by "years" was meant months when men died, it 
must have meant the same when they were born. 
Then Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven 
months — fifteen years and seven months — u and be- 

* Gen. v, 25-21 



166 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

gat Lamech." This only plunges us into deeper and 
muddier waters. In the case of Enoch, the youngest 
of these antediluvian patriarchs, the waters are still 
deeper and muddier, for he was only sixty-five months 
— five years and five months — old when he begat 
Methuselah. Yarious devices have been employed to 
escape these difficulties. One is by subtracting (on the 
ground of some errors having crept in through tran- 
scribers or translators) from the ages years or months 
after the birth of the first son and adding the same to 
the period before such birth, all the while preserving 
the total number of years which the patriarchs lived. 
Another is to make the year consist of two, three, 
four, or even six months, according to the exigencies 
of the case. It may be that the ancient Egyptians did 
reckon by months and not by our years, as we are 
informed by Eudoxus, a disciple of Plato, and also by 
Diodorus and Plutarch ; but to apply this to the 
scriptural account of the antediluvians involves us in 
more and more confusion. There are some arguments 
along this line which have considerable force, we admit. 
Professor Rask has displayed much ingenuity, to say 
the least ; but the difficulties, on the other hand, are 
great, and so we prefer to accept the statements as 
they appear in the sacred writings. It involves less 
confusion and was not impossible. 

In the human species brevity of life is contemplated 
with feelings of regret ; and yet its limitation, within 
a certain degree, is one of the most powerful factors 
in the world's progress. 

The human mind has its law of growth ; the phi- 
losophy and opinions which govern the conduct of 
men continue to be modified and molded until about 



LONGEVITY— THE PATRIARCHS. 167 

mid-life, when the character becomes practically un- 
changeable ; opinions grow into prejudices, and the 
whole mind is in a sense petrified. Then further 
progress would be impossible but for the fact that 
another generation, with minds still plastic, comes 
forward, takes up and carries on the work, and it in 
turn becomes petrified in the same way. There are 
certainly some noble exceptions to this rule, instances 
of minds which with their maturity retain the plas- 
ticity of youth, but the very rarity of the exception 
proves the rule. There is a class in almost every 
community who are opposed to progress in all direc- 
tions — half a dozen funerals often lift a whole com- 
munity out of its ruts. 

The account of the patriarchal longevity is disbe- 
lieved by many because it does not come within the 
range of modern experience. But this is not a proper 
ground of objection. Perhaps the critics are right ; 
but are there not some other things that fall outside 
of our experience ? We shall see as we proceed. 

It is a law of nature that all organized bodies shall 
be dissolved sooner or later. It is said of the patri- 
arch Methuselah, " and he died also." It matters not 
whether it be a tree, insect, animal, or man, life may 
be protracted to never so great a length, but dissolu- 
tion will come. The term longevity is used to express 
the organized life — duration of any thing. Any 
ephemera, for instance — an insect which comes slowly 
to its maturity and survives but a day or possibly an 
hour — has its longevity as surely as the eagle, the 
swan, or even man. The difference between the age 
of an animalcule whose life spans a day only and that 
of the patriarch Methuselah would not be greater 



168 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

than the difference of size between the animalcule and 
the long-lived patriarch, so that the one is as possible 
as the other. Length of life is variable, as it depends 
on conditions which may change : and, besides, what 
is very long to one being would be very short to an- 
other. At longest human life is brief : " As a flower 
of the field, so he flourisheth." 

When we remember that so large a percentage of 
the human family die in childhood there does seem 
to be something at fault in our manner of life. God 
may permit this, but is it his plan ? 

None are to be envied whose lives are prolonged to 
an age when, all the faculties are eclipsed, nor should 
they be considered " favorites of nature." The aver- 
age man does not reach the full maturity of his men- 
tal powers until about mid-life ; give him 'then thirty 
or thirty-five years at most and his work is done. 
With a few exceptions those who survive much 
beyond this do not live ; they merely exist ; the intel- 
lectual enjoyments and exertions which constitute the 
chief dignity and happiness of life are gone. 

It is very remarkable to what great ages living or- 
ganisms, both vegetable and animal, do attain some- 
times. An ivy has been known to reach the age of 
four hundred and fifty years, palms and olives seven 
hundred years, cedars eight hundred years, the oak 
from one thousand to fifteen hundred years. 

Trees have been found in Africa which were com- 
puted to be four or five thousand years old. The 
oldest tree, if not the oldest living thing upon the 
earth, is the famous cypress of Santa Maria del Tule 
in the Mexican State of Oajaca. The life of this 
venerable tree has spanned the whole of written his- 



L ONGE YITY— TIIE PA TRIA R CHS. 1 69 

toiy. It was seen by Humboldt in 1851, when it 
measured 42 feet in diameter, 126 feet in circumfer- 
ence, and 382 feet between the extremities of two 
branches. At last account it was still growing, though 
feebly. The animalcule runs through its whole life- 
period in about forty-eight hours at most ; were it to' 
live a week, which, for aught we know, it may some- 
times have done, it would be the Methuselah of its 
species. 

A sea-anemone has been known to attain the a«;e 
of seventy years. Fishes are proverbially long-lived. 
In ancient Rome gentlemen's fish-ponds were often 
known to contain lampreys that were half a century 
old. Count Buffon, the great naturalist, informs us 
that he had seen carp whose ages were one hundred 
and fifty years, perfectly well attested ; he even men- 
tions one which he supposed to be two hundred years 
old. 

Two methods have been devised for ascertaining 
the age of fishes, namely, by 'circles of the scales 
and by a transverse section of the backbone. When 
the scale of a fish is examined under a microscope it 
is found to consist of a number of circles, one within 
another, resembling in some measure the rings that 
appear on the transverse section of trees, by which 
their ages are computed. In the same manner the 
age of a fish may be ascertained by the number of 
circles on its scales, reckoning for each ring a year in 
its life. 

Crows are said to have lived a century ; the ele- 
phant from one to two centuries, camels half a cent- 
ury. In proportion to their size, birds are much 
longer lived than either men or quadrupeds. Among 



; 70 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

birds the swan is one of the longest lived; it has 
been known to live for half a century, and sometimes 
longer. A goose lias been known to live fourscore years. 
In France, the raven, known to be a long-lived bird, 
is said to have attained the age of nearly a century. 
A pelican that was kept at Mechlin, in Brabant, 
during the reign of the Emperor Maximilian, attained 
the age of eighty years. 

"While habits of life and other conditions affect the 
averages in the matter of longevity, the individual 
life is not always influenced by these. Among civil- 
ized and savage, rich and poor, masters and slaves, 
there have been some individuals who have lived to 
extreme old age. Luxury and intemperance in the 
use of alcoholic drinks are known to be the greatest 
enemies of the race, and do most to shorten the life 
of mankind. The mountains of Scotland, Wales, 
Switzerland, and America have furnished more ex- 
amples of extreme old age than the plains of Holland, 
Germany, or Poland. 

In all ages and in all lands there have been in- 
stances of great longevity. Pliny, in his natural his- 
tory, tells us that " the year A. D. 76, falling into the 
time of Yespasian, is memorable, in which w r e shall 
find as it were a calendar of long-lived men ; for that 
year there was a taxing (now a taxing is the most 
authentical and truest informer touching the ages of 
men), and in that part of Italy which lieth between 
the Apennine Mountains and the river Po there 
were found one hundred and twenty-four persons that 
either equaled or exceeded one hundred years of age." 
He then goes on to give the list : " Of the one hundred 
and twenty-four persons, fifty-four had attained the 



L 0NGEV1TY—THE PA TRIARCHS. 1 71 

age of 100 years ; fifty-seven, 110 years ; two, 125 
years ; four, 130 years ; four, 135 years ; two, 140 
years; and one, Marcus Aponius, was 150 years." 
Pliny wrote of a warm latitude, but in cold climates 
the conditions are as favorable for long life as in the 
milder. England has always been noted for its old 
people. 

Colonel Thomas Winslow, a native of Ireland, died 
on the 22d day of August, 1766, at the age of one 
hundred and forty-six years. The Countess Des- 
mond, of that same country, reached the age of one 
hundred and forty-five years. There are many other 
cases on record, but perhaps the best authenticated of 
the kind is that of the famous Thomas Parr, of Shrop- 
shire. At one hundred and twenty years he married 
his second wife ; when one hundred and thirty lie 
performed his usual work ; at one hundred and fifty- 
two by invitation he visited the king as a living 
curiosity ; nine months afterward he died, and a 
post-mortem examination made by Dr. Harvey, the 
discoverer of the circulation of the blood, showed 
that all the organs of this old man's body w T ere sound. 
Instances in our own country of very long-lived peo- 
ple, owing to the restlessness of the American char- 
acter, have not been so numerous ; nevertheless, 
there have been many cases in all the States of in- 
dividuals who have lived from one hundred to one 
hundred and fifty years. That of "Old Gabriel," 
so-called, who died in 1890, at the advanced age 
of one hundred and fifty years, in California, is in 
proof of the fact that we as a people are not without 
our Methuselahs. If w r e ask, On w T hat does long life 
depend ? the answer must be that in the case of the 



172 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

antediluvian world it was the will of God, exercised 
for a purpose. It was not a miracle, only as life in 
itself may be regarded as such. It was simply in ac- 
cordance with the laws of life at that time, while its 
abridgment to the present length was also according 
to the same will. 

All life is from God, whether it be that of man, 
beast, or tree, and is the gift of God. Centenarians 
have been found among American Indians and Ne- 
groes, as well as among the whites. 

Manner of life, nature of occupation, and heredity 
are causes which may be taken into the account ; but 
the man who said that he " owed his long life to the 
persistency of his vitality " came about as near stat- 
ing the case as it is possible to do. " It is not accord- 
ing to our experience," say some, " to believe in this 
Bible story of the patriarchal ages;" but I ask, Is it 
consistent to accept the statements of scientists and 
historians implicitly when they tell us of such won- 
derful tilings in the natural world, even the great 
ages of trees, fishes, elephants, ravens, etc., and yet 
deny that God had power to protract the lives of men 
so greatly ? Human experience cannot be the criterion 
always. 

God's ways are not our ways. He does not intend 
that we shall destroy ourselves by extravagance in liv- 
ing or by crimes ; but he has planned for us so that 
we may live and enjoy life, whether it be long or 
short, and faithfully serve him by serving our kind. 
It is his purpose that we shall put life to the best 
possible use in our development, and that of others, 
regarding it as the supreme gift of the Author of 
all good. 



LONGEVITY— THE PATRIARCHS. 178 

The intimate relation between religion and the care 
of the body is perceptible in the history of every na- 
tion. The higher the civilization and the purer the 
faith the higher the estimate placed on life. The 
value which the Bible attaches to the days of a hu- 
man being is very great. From the beginning to the 
close of the Scriptures we find a constantly increas- 
ing estimate placed upon the very hours of one's stay 
on earth. With all the importance which Christ at- 
taches to the life to come he does not fail to set forth 
the present in its true magnitude. When the great 
Teacher said, " Take no thought for your life, what 
ye shall eat ; neither for the body, what ye shall put 
on," it is very clear that he refers to undue thought 
on the necessities which enter into the daily suste- 
nance, as we see from the words which follow : " The 
life is more than meat, and the body than raiment." 



1 74 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

NOAH AND THE FLOOD. 

TO take up seriatum all the statements of facts 
which lie beyond the reach of our intellections or 
our experiences and observations would cover more 
ground than I have at my disposal in this book. I have 
therefore selected a few of the more prominent, which 
must be taken as types of all others, on the principle 
that the greater always includes the less. There are 
some topics of greater moment and dignity than oth- 
ers, even in the Bible. The account of the creation is 
greater than the story of Samson ; the advent of 
Christ and the establishment of the Christian religion 
involve more than the narrative of Jonah. Nothing 
is unimportant in this book, as in our daily life small 
things, words, actions are often great in their results, 
if not in themselves. The point toward which the 
author has been drifting is to present and explain the 
wonders of the Bible as far as they can be explained, 
and to draw the parallel between some of the marvel- 
ous things therein contained and the marvelous things 
outside of it in nature and in human life. We must 
bear in mind that a miracle is not necessarily a con- 
tradiction of any law. It may be above our experi- 
ence. God's laws are only partially revealed in the 
natural world ; and that which we understand is but 
trifling in the comparison with what we do not under- 
stand. 



NOAH AND THE FLOOD. 175 

Let ns consider in this chapter the story of the 
overthrow of the world of mankind by the deluge, an 
event said to have taken place several thousand years 
ago. It is not spoken of simply as a great calamity 
that befell a portion of the earth, but as a visitation of 
God on the human race. The reason assigned for it 
was the continued wickedness of mankind. u God 
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, 
and that every imagination of the thought of his heart 
was only evil continually." JSTor was it simply a punish- 
ment, it was an extermination of all men, save the few 
persons named who were preserved in an ark. We shall 
not recount in this place the history as given in the 
book of Genesis. The reader can easily refresh his 
memory on the subject, if he desires to do so, by read- 
ing the story for himself. 

To discredit this history, as some do along with 
some other events, is to take the ground either that 
much of the Bible is not to be believed or that God 
does not in fact exercise any direct personal govern- 
ment over the world, which is 'equivalent to the es- 
pousal of the philosophy of materialism. Every thing 
in the narration of the flood-story comes within the 
scope of reason. We are told that in the midst of a 
race of distinctly evil men there was one family com- 
posed of persons who were righteous. " Noah was a 
just man and perfect in his generation," a man who 
" walked with God." 

That was a reasonable statement. Wicked com- 
munities have abounded in all times, and there have 
generally been some people of uprightness in the 
most wicked communities. That there was such a 
flood of waters on the earth, lasting, from the first 



176 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

outpouring of the clouds until the final subsidence, 
about a year, is related circumstantially. That the 
waters were abundant for such an inundation we shall 
see as we progress. 

The skeptic takes the position that this whole ac- 
count is mythical, legendary ; that the flood never did 
occur. He furthermore says that if God is as good as 
Christians believe and teach he would not resort to so 
dire an extremity as this ; for in sending on the earth 
such a calamity innocent children, along with wicked 
men, must have been drowned in the engulfing waters. 
All of this is true ; but is it not equally true that in 
earthquakes, cyclones, pestilence, etc., the lives of in- 
nocent children are often destroyed. And yet it would 
hardly be in accordance with Christian belief to teach 
that God sustains no relation to such terrestrial events. 
God rules in the heavens and earth. 

We may plead ignorance, but ignorance is no argu- 
ment against a fact or the possibility of a fact. How 
very numerous are the laws in nature which we but 
poorly understand, and how many the events which 
startle us, causing us to ask why ? There was such a 
flood of waters, no doubt, and Noah did build an ark 
" to the saving of his house." On this the Bible is 
explicit. 

It may, however, be remarked right here that a 
belief in this matter is not of a saving character. A 
man may honestly think that there is some other ex- 
planation and yet be possessed of true spiritual life. 
But as an historical portion of the Bible, unless it can 
be shown to be mythical, it should be accepted as a 
part of Holy Writ. 

As a fact, it is one which may well cause reflection. 



NOAH AND THE FLOOD. 177 

What an event! The destruction, not of the globe 
itself, but the overflowing of the earth, in part, and the 
consequent extermination of the inhabitants of the 
world. There is no argument to show that it was a 
universal deluge of the entire globe. The language 
takes on a form, however, which conveys that idea ; 
but let us study it. 

These ancient people knew but very little of the 
earth as to its size and form. The world to them was 
just what it seemed to be, what they knew of it. For 
example, it is said, " The fear of Israel was upon every 
nation under heaven" — that is, it was upon the in- 
habitants of Arabia and Mesopotamia, who were afraid 
of them. The reader will call to mind the expression 
in the book of the Acts : " Jews were at Jerusalem 
out of every nation under heaven." Job tells us, 
" The lightnings flashed over the whole heavens " — 
that is, they illuminated the whole horizon. In the 
same way, when we read, " And the waters prevailed 
exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that 
were under the whole heavens were covered," it must 
be understood as telling us that the flow extended over 
the region occupied by the human family, namely, 
Assyria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Arabia, etc., which 
is all that is required in our belief. A partial deluge, 
destroying the whole race of man, or even, perhaps, 
only that race to which the survivors belonged, would 
meet every requirement. That such a flood was pos- 
sible, even from natural causes, in those parts of Asia 
where Noah probably lived, is shown by the fact that 
the whole of one enormous tract of land is far below 
the level of the sea, and part of this region of the 

Caspian Sea exhibits comparatively recent evidences 
12 



178 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

of the action of water. This conclusion has not been 
reached without much controversy; and it is well said 
in the new Speaker's Commentary : 

" The peculiar unfairness of the objections urged is 
to be found, not so much in the objections themselves 
as in the insisting at the same time on an interpreta- 
tion of the scripture narrative on principles which 
would not be applied to any other history. Not only 
are we required to expound ancient and Eastern 
phraseology with the cold exactness applicable only 
to the tongues of northern Europe, but moreover to 
adhere to all the interpretations of past uncritical 
ages, to believe that there was but a single window in 
the ark, that the ark stranded on the top of a mountain, 
within sight of which it very probably never sailed, 
that the waters of the flood rose three, or even five, 
miles above the sea-level, and other prodigies which 
the sacred text, even in its most natural significance, 
nowhere either asserts or implies." 

We may not be able to explain how the beasts in 
pairs belonging to the region came into the ark, nor how 
they were preserved for so long a time. Neither can any 
man tell how a chick comes to life in the shell, or how 
a rose gets its aroma, or how the heart beats, or how a 
thousand other things that might be named come to 
pass. But we do know that animal instincts are very 
wonderful. Their lives are preserved by migrations 
from one region to another when some danger threatens. 
They flock in herds and droves in a particular direc- 
tion from causes which no human wisdom can explain. 
Wolves and deer have been often known to rush into 
the villages in mountainous regions to escape forest 
fires. Who shall say that they did not by instinct seek 



NO All AND THE FLOOD. 179 

escape from the coming danger — that the God who 
formed them and endowed them with their instincts 
did not guide them ? 

If it be asked, How could four men build such an 
ark ? it may be answered that other men have done 
some wonderful things in the way of building. 

How were the great pyramids of Egypt built ? By 
what power were the huge rocks reared to such 
heights ? The world to-day cannot answer the ques- 
tion. By what appliances were the great stones, some 
of which weighed from eight hundred to twelve hun- 
dred tons, put in place in Baalbec ? Some go even so 
far as to say that we could not to-day, with what we 
know of mechanical arts, do this work. "With this I 
do not agree. How did the druids of Celtic times 
erect the massive blocks at Stonehenge? What pow- 
ers were employed in the building of the Cyclopean 
walls in Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor? 

What could four men of primitive gigantic strength 
do in the time allotted for the building of the ark, 
aided as they may have been in the work ? Let us 
not judge too hastily. 

The author visited once the great pyramid of Cho- 
lula, in central Mexico ; and .that it was at one time 
regular in form can hardly be doubted, though some 
have thought it to be only a natural hillock faced 
in places with adobe — a hill converted into a pyramid. 
It covers at its base almost forty-five acres and orig- 
inally had an elevation of over two hundred feet. We 
climbed about its ragged slopes, made ragged by the 
chafing of the elements during some hundreds of years, 
and we could there trace the lines of the bricks with 
the most perfect distinctness. It stands out boldly on 



180 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT, 

a broad plain, in full view of the great mountain 
Popocatepetl, as if man had tried to imitate God. But 
what a work it was to erect a structure so vast ! And 
yet no matter which theory is adopted, that it was a 
natural hill faced with adobe or that it was built 
wholly of adobe, the work was vast, beside which the 
building of the ark was a minor task. 

It is nowhere said that the four men built the ark 
alone and unaided. What a man causes to be done he 
does. Napoleon, we are told, constructed a roadway 
over the Alps in 1803-10 at an expense of $1,500,000, 
but he did not do the work himself ; it was done by his 
orders. The ark was not a ship, but a great quadran- 
gular box — a mere float which was about four hundred 
and fifty feet in length, seventy-five feet wide, and 
forty -five feet deep, of three stories, made water-tight 
by pitch or bitumen, in which the country abounded 
and abounds yet. 

This great float, for such it was, had enormous 
capacity, as any one can see by a little calculation. 
Allowing nothing for machinery and merchandise, it 
had a tonnage equal to almost forty thousand tons ; 
it had a greater tonnage capacity than the Great East- 
ern, the largest steam-ship of modern times, which 
has had a singular history, but for which it is doubt- 
ful if the Atlantic cable could have been successfully 
laid when it was. This monstrous vessel, the Great 
Eastern, was built with facilities to accommodate 
eight hundred saloon passengers, two thousand sec- 
ond-class passengers, and twelve hundred of the third 
class ; its crew was composed of four hundred offi- 
cers and men; but these constitute a small part of a 
ship's freight; the ten boilers, filled, weighed one 



NO A II A XI) THE FLOOD. 181 

hundred tons each ; the coal-bunkers of the monster 
craft were made to carry fourteen thousand tons of 
coal; it also had a capacity for transporting five 
thousand soldiers, for which it was used. The ark 
was greater in carrying capacity than the Great East- 
em ; it certainly was equal to all that w T as required 
of it. The objection made that the ark was not 
large enough to accommodate all that was said to have 
been preserved in it falls to the ground when its size 
is taken into the account in connection with the lim- 
ited area over which the flood extended. If it had 
prevailed over the whole earth literally, and risen 
above the highest mountains on the globe, the depth 
in some sections would have been inconceivable. 
The account says, " And the waters prevailed ex- 
ceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that 
were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen 
cubits" — that is, twenty-five feet — "upward did the 
waters prevail ; and the mountains were covered," * 
which would be an equivalent to a water envelope of 
about five miles over the whole earth. u With God 
all things are possible.'' 

Water ! what a boon when it bubbles from the 
mountain spring or rises from the rocks at the well's 
bottom ! What a blessing as it descends in gentle 
showers on field and garden ! What a curse when in 
awful torrents it sweeps down some valley from burst- 
ing dam, laying waste a city ! How varied its ap- 
pearance, now in vapor in the skies and then in great 
ice-fields solid as the granite rocks, here a thundering 
Niagara, there a pearly dewdrop in the cup of the 
flower! What abysses of the deep there are that 

* Gen. vii, 18, 19. 



182 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

almost defy the measuring-line ! There is a spot in 
the Southern Atlantic between Rio de Janeiro and 
the Cape of Good Hope where the line has been known 
to run out for nine hours ! The bottom was reached 
at seven thousand seven hundred fathoms, or seven 
geographical miles. 

About nine thousand eight hundred cubic miles of 
water — nearly one half of the fresh water on the 
globe — is in the upper lakes. Eighteen millions of 
cubic feet of water plunge over Niagara Falls every 
minute of time. But it would require one hundred 
and fifty-two years for all the waters of these inland 
seas to make the circuit of the lakes, the falls, the 
St. Lawrence River, and back from the ocean through 
vapor and rain into the lakes again. 

How much water is there on the earth and in the 
air that surrounds it ? There was a time in the his- 
tory of our globe when all the waters now on the sur- 
face in rivers, lakes, oceans, etc., existed in the form 
of elemental gases, oxygen, and hydrogen. The at- 
mosphere lias a depth of about fifty miles, and con- 
tains vast quantities of water in the form of vapor. 
An ocean is above us continually. " And God made 
the firmament, and divided the waters which were 
under the firmament from the waters which were 
above the firmament." 

We know but little of the amount of water in the 
earth — in the seas, oceans, lakes, rivers, soil, and atmos- 
phere. Three fourths of the earth's surface is water. 

" When we watch a gentle summer rain does it ever 
occur to us that this familiar sight involves the pre- 
vious expenditure of almost incredible quantities of 
energy, or do we think of a drizzly day as perhaps 



NOAII AND THE FLOOD. 183 

calling for a greater exertion of nature's powers than 
an earthquake ? Probably not ; but these suppositions 
are both reasonable. Take Manhattan Island, for in- 
stance, which contains twenty square miles, and on 
which, one year with another, over thirty inches of 
rain falls. (To be within the mark we call the area 
twenty miles, and the annual rain-fall thirty inches.) 
One square mile contains 640 acres, and each acre 
43,560 square feet. Multiplying by 640 and divid- 
ing by 12, we have 2,323,200 as the number of cubic 
feet of water on one mile in a rain-fall of one inch ; 
and as a cubic foot of water weighs about 997 
ounces avoirdupois, and there are 35,840 ounces to the 
ton, this weighs 2,323,200 multiplied by 997 divided 
by 35,840, or, in round numbers, 64,636 tons (to one 
mile and one incli of rain). As there are twenty miles 
and thirty inches, the annual rain-fall on this little island 
is 1,393,290,000 cubic feet, or 38,781,600 tons. The 
amount of this may be better appreciated by compari- 
son. Thus, the pyramid of Cheops contains less than 
one hundred million cubic feet, and weighs less than 
seven million tons, and this water then, in the form 
of ice, would many times replace the largest pyramids 
of Egypt. If we had to cart it away it would require 
3,231,800 cars carrying twelve tons each to re- 
move it, and these at an average length of thirty feet 
to the car would make six trains, each reaching in one 
continuous line of cars across the continent, so that 
the leading locomotive of each train would be at San 
Francisco before the rear had left New York— a result 
which appears at first so incredible that it seems best 
to give the figures on which we rest the statement." * 

* Professor S. P. Langley. 



184 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLT WRIT. 

But not only did the clouds pour oat their floods 
from above ; "the foundations of the great deep were 
broken up ; " the earth sank most likely in all the 
regions. 

One of the most remarkable facts in the discussion 
of the deluge is that almost every people on earth 
have some tradition concerning it. This might be 
expected in countries visited by missionaries. Bat it 
has been found in regions most remote, and where 
civilization has never set up its banners. 

The Polynesians have the following story of the 
deluge : u Two men had gone out to sea to fish with 
the line, Roo and Teahoroa by name. They threw 
their hooks into the sea, which caught in the hair of 
the god Ruahatu. They exclaimed, 'A fish!' They 
drew up the line and saw that it was a man they had 
caught. At sight of the god they bounded to the 
other end of their bark, and were half dead with fear. 
Ruahatu asked them, ' What is this ? ' The two fish- 
ermen replied, 'We came to fish, and we did not 
know that our hooks would catch thee.' The god then 
said, ' Unfasten my hair ; ' and they did so. Then Rua- 
hatii asked, 'What are your names?' They replied, 
'Roo and Teahoroa.' Ruahatn next said, 'Return to 
the shore, and tell men that the earth will be covered 
with water, and all the world will perish. To-morrow 
morning repair to the isle called Toamarams ; it will 
be a place of safety for you and your children.' Rua- 
hatu caused the sea to cover the lands, and all men 
perished except Roo, Teahoroa, and their families." 

Connected with the great flood of water there is a 
Mexican tradition, presenting some analogies to the 
story of Noah and the ark. In most of the printed 



NOAH AND THE FLOOD. 185 

manuscripts supposed to relate to this event a kind of 
boat is represented floating over the waste of waters 
and containing a man and a woman. Even the Tlas- 
caltecs, the Zapotecs, the Miztecs, and the people of 
Michoacan are said to have had such pictures. The 
man is variously called Coxcox, Teocipactli, Tezpi, 
and Nata ; the woman, Xochiquetzal and Nena. 

The following has been usually accepted as the 
ordinary Mexican version of this myth: u In Atona- 
tiuh, the Age of Water, a great flood covered all the 
face of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof were 
turned into fishes. Only one man and one woman 
escaped, saving themselves in the hollow trunk of an 
ahahuete, or bald cypress ; the name of the man being 
Coxcox, and that of his wife Xochiquetzal. On the 
waters abating a little they grounded their ark on the 
peak of Colhuacan, the Ararat of Mexico. Here they 
increased and multiplied, and children began to gather 
about them — children who were all born dumb. And a 
dove came and gave them tongues, innumerable lan- 
guages. Only fifteen of the descendants of Coxcox, 
who afterward became heads of families, spake the 
same language, or could at all understand each other ; 
and from these fifteen are descended the Toltecs, the 
Aztecs, and the Acolhuas. 9 ' This dove is not the only 
bird mentioned in these diluvial traditions, and must 
by no means be confounded with the birds of another 
palpably Christianized story. For in Michoacan a 
tradition was preserved, in which the name of the 
Mexican Noah, was Tezpi. " "With better fortune than 
that ascribed to Coxcox he was able to save in a 
spacious vessel, not only himself and his wife, but also 
his children, several animals, and a quantity of grain 



186 FA OT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

for the common use. When the waters began to sub- 
side he sent out a vulture, that it might go to and fro 
on the earth and bring; him word again when the dry 
land began to appear. But the vulture fed upon the 
carcasses that were strewn in every part, and never 
returned. Then Tezpi sent out other birds, and 
among these was a humming-bird. And when the 
sun began to cover the earth with a new verdure the 
humming-bird returned to its old refuge, bearing 
green leaves. And Tezpi saw that his vessel was 
aground near the mountain of Colhuacan, and he 
landed there." * 

The old mythologies are filled witli the shadowy 
traditions of a flood, which caused the destruction of 
well-nigh the whole human race ; it has been discov- 
ered in the most distant countries and among the most 
barbarous tribes. Humboldt found in the wilderness 
that surrounds the Orinoco, among a people whose 
names were unknown to the civilized world, traditions 
of a great flood. 

" We find," writes the great naturalist, " in all sim- 
plicity among nations now in a savage state a tradi- 
tion which the Greeks embellished with all the charms 
of imagination." The ancient Brazilians had, too, some 
notion of a general deluge. The Peruvians reported 
that many years before there were any Incas all the 
people were drowned by a flood save six, who were the 
progenitors of the existing races, who were saved in a 
float. The original inhabitants of Cuba related that 
"an old man, knowing that a deluge was to come, 
built a great ship and went into it with all his family 
and abundance of animals." 

* Bancroft's Native Races. 



NOAU AND THE FLOOD. 187 

One of the ancient books of the Persians records 
that "the world having been corrupted by Ahriman, 
the Evil One, it was thought necessary to bring; on a 
flood of waters, that all impurity might be washed 
out." And so I might go on through Scandinavia, 
whose wild fables repeat the same story in some form. 
The Chinese and Hindus had their tradition of a 
deluge that "flowed abundantly, and then subsided ; 
but covered for a time the whole earth." But why 
bring forward any others? The fact that such a tradi- 
tion should be found in every land is at least strong 
evidence, not only that mankind have sprung from a 
common center, and that therefore the race is a unit 
in its origin, but that such a deluge did occur, stamp- 
ing the survivors with an impression that time cannot 
efface. We do not see how such an impression could 
ever have been made if there was no such flood upon 
the earth. All must admit that a deluge such as is 
here described was a possibility. The earth could 
sink anywhere sufficiently to allow of the submerging 
of any extent of territory. Many islands are known 
to be but the abraded summits of mountains that may 
once have lifted their heads far above the waters. 
Every part of the earth has been under water at some 
period or another. If there never was a deluge such 
as the Bible tells of, yet there have been floods, del- 
uges; water-washed bowlders are seen on the highest 
regions of the earth. Sea-shells are found far up on 
the mountains, showing that the seas have prevailed 
over the earth. Land and water have interchanged 
many times, and may do so again. 

There was a time when the temperature of the 
earth was equal in all parts, when Greenland and 



188 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

Siberia were as warm as Florida or Cuba. Remains 
of tropical animals are found incrusted with ice where 
they have been held for ages. Upon Mount Katah- 
din, in the Moosehead region of Maine, bowlders can 
be seen lying over four thousand feet above the sea- 
level which contain fossils of the sea. There is one 
bowlder in Vermont known as the " Green Mountain 
Giant," which is estimated to weigh thirty-four hun- 
dred tons. What was the power which transported 
from nortli to south such masses ? It was ice, but ice 
borne forward by a mighty flood of water in some 
age. 

The story of Atlantis may, after all, be more than 
wild romance. When we look at a terrestrial globe 
or map it requires no great stretch of imagination to 
see how the eastern hemisphere may have been torn 
from the western. The Atlantic Ocean occupies the 
basin made by the awful cataclysm. 

The American continent is the oldest of any geo- 
logically, and was peopled in the earliest ages of the 
world. In the breaking up of which we speak it is 
easy to see how in some previous age the people of 
Assyria could find their way to regions in the West, 
or how the West could have peopled the East. How- 
ever this all may be, it is evident that some hundreds 
of years ago there was a great population in the West. 
Remains exist to-day, and are becoming more and 
more apparent as the years go by. The mounds all 
over the South-west, the ruins of more than half a 
hundred stone-built cities in Yucatan, the wonderful 
old highways in South America, all point to a great 
people who once had empire in the Western world. 

It is not claimed that the flood of Noah caused this 



NOAH AND THE FLOOD, 189 

overthrow ; but I wish simply to show that floods 
have been as great as that described in the Bible ; and 
so to avow one's self a believer in the story of the 
flood is not a sign of weak credulity. 

In view of such startling events as those which 
have transpired in the history of our world, recorded 
in the Book of Books, rooted in the traditions of nearly 
or quite all nations, civilized and barbarous, with 
evidences of great upheavals and other changes of 
which signs are in the earth every-where, it seems like 
presumption for any one to lift his feeble voice and 
say, " I do not believe." A misty veil may cover the 
past, but an apocalyptic day will come — " At even 
it shall be light." 



190 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

BOOK WONDERS— SAMSON THE MIGHTY. 

THE Bible contains some things which seem to 
almost any one as belonging in the realm of the 
impossible — that is, judged of by the present, taking 
our experience as the test. But let us not forget that 
our knowledge, even in this scientific age, is quite 
circumscribed, while our experience reaches through 
a very short segment of time; so that, after all, 
statements which seem to be at variance with the 
truth — such, for instance, as that relating to the 
strength of Samson — may, after all, be entirely reason- 
able. This account of the great Israelitish champion 
is related circumstantially in the book of Judges, and 
is one at which skeptics sneer, and they are free to 
call people very credulous who can put faith in such 
" legendary " and impossible things. Samson was 
not only a real person, but he was an odd sort of 
character in history ; he was above the average man 
of his times in some respects, and below him in 
others. He was one of the judges who ruled over 
Israel between the times of the death of Joshua and 
Saul's accession to the throne of Israel. These gov- 
ernors were usually chosen by the people ; but Gideon 
and Samson were appointed by divine authority. 
The time of these judges was about four hundred and 
fifty years, and there were in all fifteen of them. At 
this time the Philistines were dominant over Israel, 



BOOK WONDERS—SAMSON THE MIGHTY. 191 

and Samson was selected to meet a particular emer- 
gency. 

He was born in answer to prayer, and was a JSTaza- 
rite of the strictest school. This judge was not a little 
eccentric; and one of the things he did which was 
not according to the laws of his people was to choose 
a wife from among his national enemies. Perhaps it 
was a species of state-craft or political maneuvering, 
for in modern times royal families in Europe blend 
in this way, regarding it as advantageous to the cause 
of peace, or strength in case of war. He was wise 
enough to consult his father and mother, however, 
and thus has set an example to all other young men. 
Any young man will be the gainer if he will allow his 
mother to advise him in the selection of a life-partner. 
On their way to Timnath, where the young lady re- 
sided, Samson and his parents in some way became 
separated for a little time, and during the separation 
the young man was attacked by a ferocious lion. He 
was unarmed, having neither spear nor javelin ; but 
the " Spirit of the Lord moved upon him," and he 
rent the lion as if it had been a kid. Out of this 
affair was born a curious riddle that involved the hero 
and his wife in a family feud resulting in a separation 
for a time without divorce. There has been many 
another separation in human life between husband and 
wife with no greater cause. This was followed by the 
destruction of the corn-fields of his enemies, which 
was very ingenious, to say the least. 

But it is not of these eccentricities and episodes 
in the life of Jud^e Samson of which we wish to 
speak, *but rather of that part of his career which re- 
counts his wonderful feats of muscular strength, such 



192 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

as the killing of thirty Philistines and plundering 
them, to enable him to obtain the wherewith to pay a 
forfeit ; the bursting of the strong cords with which 
he was bound ; iliQ slaughter of a thousand of his 
enemies with the jaw-bone of an ass ; the bearing 
away on his shoulders at midnight the gates of Gaza, 
with all their fixtures, and, finally, the overthrow of 
the temple of Dagon, which crumbled beneatli the 
strength of his grasp. All these are wonderful 
things, so much so as to excite in some minds a sus- 
picion of their truthfulness. But is not the whole 
universe full of the most wonderful things ? Almost 
any thing may be a wonder to somebody ; the first 
ship as it appeared to an Indian, the firing of guns 
and the braying of trumpets, all have excited the 
greatest wonder in some minds. When the Span- 
iards invaded Mexico the Aztecs, who had never seen 
horses, thought that horse and man were one being ; 
they were wonders. 

Samson was supernaturally strong, for the record 
says, " The Spirit of God came upon him ; " and God, 
we know, is omnipotent. " God and one man are a 
majority." Of the size of this Israelitish wonder we 
know nothing ; he may or may not have been of great 
physical stature. The Bible gives account in a num- 
ber of places of a class of men called " giants ; " and 
while the original may signify that they were violent 
men, ( rather than large men, it is more likely the latter 
idea was intended — that is, that they were men of 
unusual stature. It also says, " There were giants in 
those days," whose children " became mighty men, 
which were of old men of renown." From this there 
have ^one out through all a^es and nations accounts 



BOOK WONDERS—SAMSON THE MIGHTY. 193 

of giant men. The Anakim were a race of large- 
sized men, so great in stature as to be regarded as 
veritable giants. Goliath of Gath, the Philistine, 
whom the youthful David slew with his sling and a 
pebble from the brook, was a man of very great size. 
Taking the scriptural account, and reducing the cubit 
to modern measure, this champion was ten feet and six 
inches in height, and had an armor of great weight. 
His brazen helmet weighed fifteen pounds ; his target, 
or collar, thirty pounds. His spear was twenty-six feet 
long, and the head of it weighed thirty-eight pounds ; 
his sword weighed four pounds ; the metal greaves 
for the covering of his legs, thirty pounds ; his coat 
of mail, one hundred and thirty-six pounds. The 
whole weighed two hundred and fifty-three pounds ! 
He must have been a giant to carry all this. 

The spies who went out under the direction of 
Moses to reconnoiter the promised land, to see what 
it was like, as well as to judge of the strength of its 
inhabitants, brought back .a very disheartening report. 
They said, "We saw giants, the sons of Anak, which 
come of the giants ; and we were in our own sight as 
grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." Most 
likely their foes were magnified by their fears ; 
Caleb and J oshua were more courageous, and brought 
back a better account. Og, the king of Bashan, was 
a real giant; his bedstead was of iron, and according 
to scriptural measurements was about sixteen feet 
long and seven wide. If he was three quarters the 
length of his bed, or two thirds, even, he must have 
been of enormous stature. His bedstead was carried 
away after a battle by his enemies, as a curiosity, as 

well as a trophy of war. 
13 



1 94 FA GT AND FICTION IN EOL Y WRIT. 

The idea of a remote giant ancestry is somewhat 
peculiar to mankind ; it runs through all nations and 
must somewhere have had a beginning. Berosus in- 
forms us that the ten antediluvian kings of Chaldea 
were giants. The same claim has been made for the 
early occupants of the British Isles. It is not at all 
improbable that in an earlier age of the world, when 
the habits of mankind were simple and conditions 
favorable, individuals in larger numbers were of 
greater strength and size, as well as longer lived than 
now. And yet from old records, from carvings, and 
from remains found in very old tombs we cannot think 
that the human race, as a whole, had averaged much 
above that of the present in any sense, so that giants 
were the exceptions. The races vary somewhat, we 
know. The Esquimaux average about four feet only 
in height ; the Caucasians about live feet nine inches. 
The Patagonians were regarded in the last century as 
constituting a race of giants ; but they are now known 
to be men of the ordinary stature. Science, in the 
sphere of comparative anatomy, has come in to abol- 
ish the idea of the human race ever having attained 
the size in any part of the earth which has been 
attributed to it by some writers. The giants the 
Chinese told about, who guarded the gates of their 
cities, and were said to be fifteen feet high, were evi- 
dently manufactured out of the fossil bones of mam- 
moths or some other gigantic quadrupeds of a past 
age. But giants have existed. There was Gabara, 
who lived during the reign of Claudius Csesar, and 
who was the equal of Goliath of Gath. A Scotchman, 
whose name was Funniman, and who lived in the times 
of Eugene II., was over ten feet high. The Emperor 



BOOK WONDERS— SAMSON THE MIGHTY. 195 

Maxi minus, A,D. 235, measured eight feet six inches. 
If there were giants in Bible times there have been 
since. The human race is a prolific study from what- 
ever stand-point it is viewed. The giant of to-day is 
of little use ; the world has not had very much use 
for men of extraordinarily large proportions ; brains 
conquer the world, not muscle. 

The average man has a height of about five feet 
nine, weighs about a hundred and fifty pounds, 
sleeps eight hours out of the twenty-four, works 
when he cannot help it, and prefers other men to do 
his thinking; and yet the average man is the best. 
So, too, the average intellect is better than precocity, 
as the average sunlight is better for vegetation than 
too much of burning heat. 

" Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, 
and others have greatness thrust upon them." A 
giant in physical size may be feeble-minded and short- 
lived. A man may be a giant mentally, and yet 
be diminutive physically. Daniel Lambert, the English- 
man, who died in July, 1809, weighed seven hundred 
and thirty-nine pounds. His coffin was built upon 
wheels, by which he was rolled into his grave. He 
was as well known, on account of his enormous size, as 
any man in England. On the other hand, Alexander 
Stephens, of Georgia, was so small in stature that it 
was playfully remarked that u he could cool himself in 
the shadow of a walking-stick ; " but he was a man 
of magnificent mind. 

A Frenchman* wrote a book in 1718 for the purpose 
of showing that the human race had greatly decreased 
in stature between the creation and the birth of 

*M. Henrion, Academician. 



196 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

Christ. He calculated that Adam was one hundred 
and twenty-three feet nine inches high; that Eve 
was only one hundred and eighteen feet. He also 
argued that the degeneration was very rapid ; for 
]SToah was only twenty-seven feet, while Abraham 
was down to twenty feet, and Moses was but thirteen 
feet tall. Alexander was misnamed " the Great," 
for he was but six feet. Julius Csesar was five feet 
high. According to this erratic author the Christian 
dispensation arrested all further decrease. If it had 
not the human family would have dwindled down to 
almost microscopic objects by this time. 

All the marvelous tales about finding the remains 
of men whose skulls would hold a bushel, and who 
were thirty feet high and upward, grew out of the 
fossil bones found in the earth before the science of 
geology or paleontology was born. They are now 
understood, and the enormous giants are no more. 

Classical antiquity is peopled with giants, and sad 
havoc have they played. "Violent contortions of 
nature, huge spoutings of volcanoes, terrible storms, 
all of which modern science explains by physical 
laws, meteorological changes by climatic causes, the 
vivid imagination of poets and philosophers attributed 
to the enraged battlings of giants, or their mad revel- 
ings against a power more gigantic than their own. 
Hence, wind-storms were the breathings of some 
monster who must have possessed a huge mouth. 
Mount Etna rested on the body of a giant who 
breathed out fire and smoke at every uneasy toss he 
made from side to side, or at every dyspeptic belching 
or qualm his colossal stomach experienced. 

" Though the ancients loved to magnify the records 



BOOK WONDERS— SAMSON THE MIGHTY. 197 

of giants we sometimes are tempted to think that 
they were drawn in colors highly toned in order to 
show the great powers of such mortals or heroes as 
successfully vied with them. Ulysses, the Homeric 
hero, gets the solitary-eyed, man-eating Polyphemus 
blind drunk, runs a red-hot firebrand into his vision- 
ary organ, and crawls out of his reach beneath his 
stalwart legs. Nor has time in any way diminished 
humanity's admiration for giants. Poets have joked 
them, philosophers theorized, travelers discovered 
new ones, and a credulous and curiosity-loving public 
swelled the coffers of the Barnums and showmen who 
exhibited them. To be more specific, a poet thus 
describes one whose tastes w r ere piscatorial : 

" i His angle-rod made of a sturdy oak, 
His line a cable that in storms ne'er broke, 
His hook he baited with a dragon's tail 
And sat on a rock as he bobbed for whale.' n 

While the Bible makes frequent reference to men 
of giant size or giant tempers dwarfs have had a poor 
showing. In one place the law is laid down (Lev. 
xx, 21) that no dwarf shall offer sacrifices at the altar. 
In the New Testament Zaccheus was at least a man 
of small stature, for he climbed into a sycamore-tree 
that he might obtain a glimpse of the Lord as he 
passed by. In fabulous times they told of pygmies 
who were very diminutive. Both Stanley and Du 
Chaillu tell of very small people found in the equa- 
torial regions of the Dark Continent. 

The history of dwarfs, the other extreme, has 
been scarcely less remarkable than that of giants. 
The Romans, especially the ladies in high life, kept 
houses full of them. Julia, the daughter of the 



198 FA CT AND FICTION IN SOL Y WRIT. 

Emperor Augustus, had one named Canopas, who 
was only two feet high, and another named Andro- 
media. Her father liked them if they were good- 
looking, so different from the Spanish court, where 
they only harbored them as they were hideous, de- 
formed, hump-backed, and ugly. There are pict- 
ures by both Raphael and Velasquez, of court scenes, 
in which their hideous features form some part of the 
foreground. The wicked Catherine de' Medici, of 
St. Bartholomew notoriety, whose crimes by poi- 
son would fill a volume, and whose treacheries, plots, 
and schemes many more, had a penchant for little 
people. She conceived the brilliant idea of having 
a nation of them made to order ; but her experiment 
was attended with no success. The first wife of 
Joachim Frederic, elector of Brandenburg, assembled 
a number of both sexes together for the same pur- 
pose ; but she soon gave it up as a bad job. However, 
Peter the Great once made a great performance of a 
dwarf marriage, undoubtedly with a view of encour- 
aging others to make the venture. It was in 1710. 
Peter proclaimed the bans many months before all 
over the kingdom, and peremptorily ordered all dwarfs 
within two hundred miles of the capital to be present. 
He even sent carriages after them and brought many by 
main force. An elegant banquet was spread for them, 
the tiniest little dishes, tables, and chairs, resembling 
more a modern dolls' tea-party than any thing else. 
Those who came late were made to wait on the rest, 
and many were the bickerings they had among them- 
selves as to who should sit first and where ; but the 
grand time was when the ball came. The bride and 
groom led off, each being three feet two inches high. 



BOOK WONDERS— SAMSON THE MIGHTY. 199 

Charles I. gave away the bride to the court 
dwarf, William Gibson, and the queen presented her 
with a diamond ring, on which occasion the long- 
forgotten Waller, the court poet, wrote some poor 
verses. In fact, Charles seemed fond of dwarfs, and 
had many at his court, with whom he played all sorts 
of pranks. On one occasion at a court banquet he 
had one served up in cold pie, out of which he 
jumped at the proper time, all armed, and accoutered 
with rapier and a tiny helmet. The king in a merry 
mood conferred the order of knighthood on him and 
suffered him to alternately make love and quarrel 
with the queen's monkey on grounds of equality.* 

It is a fact well known that while giants are almost 
invariably characterized by mental and bodily weak- 
ness the opposite anomaly of humanity, the dwarfs, 
are generally active, intelligent, healthy, and long- 
lived persons. 

In the seventeenth century, to gratify a whim of 
the Empress of Austria, all the giants and dwarfs 
in the German Empire were assembled at Vienna. 
As circumstances required that all should be housed 
in an extensive building it w T as feared that the impos- 
ing proportions of the giants would terrify the dwarfs, 
and means were taken to assure the latter of their 
perfect freedom and safety. But the result was very 
different to that contemplated. The dwarfs teased, 
insulted, and even robbed the giants to such an extent 
that the overgrown mortals, with tears in their eyes, 
complained of their stunted persecutors; and as a 
consequence sentinels had to be stationed in the 
building to protect the giants from the dwarfs. 

* Article " Dwarfs," Book of Bays. 



200 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

It is not claimed that there have been any men in 
modern times equal in strength to Samson ; but there 
have been Samsons in other ways, men in every 
respect his equal. Of these we shall speak in another 
chapter. 

The prodigious muscular strength of the brothers 
Pospeschelli, of Vienna, was of a character sufficiently 
noteworthy to merit discussion at several meetings 
of the medical society of that city. Joseph Pospe- 
schelli could hold a table suspended by his teeth while 
three persons stood upon it. He and his brother 
bore upon their shoulders a sort of bridge while a 
horse drawing a cart full of stones was driven over it. 
The feats of one Jorgnery, too, were simply Samson- 
ian. The Frenchman would hang suspended by his 
legs from a swinging bar and by sheer muscular 
strength lift a heavy horse and its rider off the stage, 
suspending them several minutes and then letting them 
down gradually and evenly as he raised them. Stan- 
ley, the African explorer, describes a strong man who 
was six feet five inches tall, and rather disproportion- 
ately slender, who could toss an ordinary man into the 
air ten feet and catch him in his descent. In the 
wilds of northern Wisconsin there was a man by 
the name of Panquette, who was called the Samson 
of the region, who could perform feats of physical 
strength that were most astonishing. 

Giovanni Battista Belzoni, born in the city of Padua, 
in 1778, where a statue is erected to his memory, 
traveled extensively as the "Patagonian giant" — for 
then the Patagonians were supposed to be of unusual 
size and strength — and astonished the world with 
his marvelous physical power. With a frame-work 



BOOK WONDERS—SAMSON THE MIGHTY. 201 

attached to his person lie could walk with a dozen 
men on his back with as much grace as a soldier 
on dress parade. 

Thomas Tapham, who was born in London in 1760, 
was possessed of a degree of strength which seemed 
supernatural. An authentic account of this man was 
given to the world by a gentleman well known in the 
literary world, William Button, who frequently wit- 
nessed his feats. He would carry a beam of a house as 
a soldier would his matchlock. Whatever he touched 
seemed to lose its gravitation. He could snap a rope 
which would sustain twenty hundred-weight, and do 
many other things which seemed far beyond the power 
of a mortal. 

All of these are inferior to the Samson of the Bible ; 
but they serve to show us that there are possibilities 
which lie in the domain of nature and nature's God 
beyond the experience of most men, in view of 
which we may well pause before saying, " I will not 
believe." 

What physical giants there are in the insect world ! 
Let us take the smallest speck of matter, a grain of 
sand, for instance, and place by its side a living insect, 
however small, and the difference between them is 
very great, because the one has life and the other is 
inanimate. God made the insect, w T e do not know 
for what purpose, but for some wise end, and for that 
end endowed it w T ith the power which it possesses. 

A common flea, of which it seems almost puerile 
to speak in this connection, can, without much appar- 
ent effort, leap, according to Fonville, more than two 
hundred times its own length ; and several kinds of 
grasshoppers and locusts are said to be able to take 



202 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

leaps quite as wonderful. Now, in that proportion, 
with the same muscular endowments an ordinary 
man ought to be able to take his stand and at one 
bound spring twelve hundred feet into the air, which 
would be an equivalent exertion of muscular energy. 

A man of average physical power can move with- 
out much difficulty a weight about one third to one 
half of his own. Subject a mole-cricket to the same 
test, and the result is quite different. This little 
creature, which weighs about sixty grains on the 
average, has been known to move a weight of three 
pounds, or three hundred and seventy-five times its 
own weight. So that if a man were proportionately 
strong he could carry a burden of about thirty tons ! 

In a volume published by Yan Yoorst, on the 
Natural History of Animals ', several illustrations 
are given of the superherculean strength with which 
the commonest insects are endowed. 

Again, for a man to run ten miles within the hour 
would be admitted to be a tolerably good display of 
pedestrianism ; but what are we to say to the little in- 
sect observed by Mr. Delisle, " so minute as almost to 
be invisible," which ran nearly six inches in a second, 
and in that space was calculated to make one thousand 
and eighty steps? This, according to the calculation 
of Kirby and Spence, is as if a man whose steps 
measured only two feet should run at the incredible 
rate of twenty miles in a minute. Equally surprising 
are the instances of insect strength given by Mr. 
Newport. 

The great stag-beetle, which tears off the bark from 
the roots and branches of trees, has been known to 
gnaw a hole an inch in diameter through the side 



BOOK WONDERS—SAMSON THE MIGHTY. 203 

of an iron canister in which it was confined, and on 
which the marks of its jaws were distinctly visible. 

The common beetle can, without injury, support 
and even raise great weights and make its way be- 
neath very great pressure. In order to put the 
strength of this insect- Atlas to the test, experiments 
have been made which prove that it is able to sustain 
and escape from beneath a load of from twenty to 
thirty ounces — a prodigious burden when it is remem- 
bered that the insect itself does not weigh as many 
grains. 

There is a beetle known to entomologists called the 
Goliath — Goliathus giganteus — named after David's 
rival on account of its size and strength, which has 
wonderful power. In proportion to its bulk it is a 
hundred times stronger than the Samson of the Bible. 
There are many other wonders in the insect world. 
To one motion of your arm a common fly vibrates its 
wings three hundred and sixty times, and moves for- 
ward a distance of six feet. If a man were to equal 
it in the matter of locomotion, proportionately, he 
would travel sixty miles a minute, or sixty times faster 
than the fastest express train. Sir Walter Scott ex- 
perimented on a garden snail, and came to the conclu- 
sion that no prison in Scotland could hold a single con- 
vict if he had the same relative strength ; and if he were 
as strong in proportion to his size as a great many dif- 
ferent insects he could go crashing through prison walls 
of granite and iron hundreds of feet in thickness. 

There is surely no limit to the power of God ; he 
who could give to these almost despised creatures such 
physical endowments can give to man any power or 
faculty which may be used for his glory. 



204 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

A GROUP OF SAMSONS. 

SAMSON was a wonderful man in point of physical 
strength, the account of which has often been 
alluded to as a mere myth — an unbelievable tradition. 
It is my purpose to show that there are some world 
wonders as well as Bible wonders, and as great. If 
Samson was endowed with very marvelous physical 
strength by the Almighty could not he endow others 
with equal strength, muscular, or in some other way ? 
The world is full of marvels. All strength is not 
merely physical. 

Some people read the Bible, which contains so many 
things that are marvelous, and then throw it down 
and cry out, " Myth ! fable ! legend ! " and possibly 
turn to nature, so full of the great things equally won- 
derful, mysterious, and inexplicable, and offer no ob- 
jection. So in human life, in the life of the world, 
the mind is often startled by the most astounding rev- 
elations. If mere Nature, in her manifold workings, 
can exhibit such marvels, what may we expect when 
God puts forth his power in the life of man ? How 
are we to explain the great characters which have ap- 
peared in all ages, great in so diverse a manner, only 
as we recognize the power of God in bestowing these 
gifts ? Samson was great because God made him so. 
The same is true of all great characters. 

The annals of precocity present no greater instance 



A GEO UP OF SAMSONS. 205 

than that of the brief career of Christian Heinecken, 
born at Lubeck, Germany, February 6, 1721. If the 
records of antiquity had told of him, or if it had been 
written in the Bible, the whole recital would have 
been regarded by some as purely mythical and dis- 
missed as unworthy of anyone's serious consideration. 
But the comparatively late period of his birth and 
the unimpeachable character of the numerous wit- 
nesses that testify to his extraordinary endowments 
leave no alternative from belief and wonder. This 
child, we are informed, spoke, and that quite sensibly, 
too, within a few hours after his birth. When ten 
months old he could converse on many subjects ; when 
a year old he was quite well versed in the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures, and in another month was tolerably 
familiar with the New Testament. When two years 
and a half old he could answer almost any ordinary 
question in ancient history or geography. He next 
acquired the Latin and French languages, both of 
which he spoke with ease. The king of Denmark 
wishing to see this remarkable child, he was taken to 
Copenhagen in his fourth year, where he was exam- 
ined and pronounced a great wonder. He was of fee- 
ble constitution, and died on the 27th of June, A. D. 
1725, w T hen only about four and a half years old. 
Both German and French savants wrote dissertations, 
in which they attempted to account for this psycho- 
logical wonder. The ground taken by Martini, of 
Lubeck, was that it was precocity resulting from dis- 
ease. 

The origin of these marvelous gifts was deeper 
than that. Only the Creator himself could explain 
such a being. 



206 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL 7 WRIT. 

The world has had a good many Samsons on one 
line or another, men whose endowments were start- 
ling. People talk about the Bible taxing their cre- 
dulity ; there are some things outside of the Bible 
which do the same thing, only that men believe the 
one and reject the other. Take the matter of mem- 
ory. Lord Macaulay, when a student, it is said, com- 
mitted to memory a copy of the London Times adver- 
tisements, and all between Saturday evening and 
Monday morning, on a wager. It was a mental feat 
more great than profitable. Themistocles, the old 
Greek, could call by name all the citizens of Athens 
to the number of twenty thousand. Cyrus knew by 
name, we are told, every soldier in his army. 

Roman history tells of one Hortensius, who sat a 
whole day and listened to a sale, and then in the even- 
ing gave an account of every article sold, the price 
paid, and the name of the purchaser. There was a 
young Corsican at Padua who heard a roll-call of 
thirty-six thousand names, and then recited the list 
from memory, and could repeat the same backward. 
The first impulse on hearing or reading such state- 
ments is to cry out, "I don't believe it! " 

There have been some wonderful mathematicians 
who were of Samsonian strength, but in a way differ- 
ent from that of the Israeli tish. giant. Dr. Wallace, 
of Oxford, could extract the square root in the dark 
to forty decimal places without making a figure on 
paper. And there was George Parker Bidder, who 
became a great civil engineer. When but a little boy 
he was examined in mental arithmetic by eminent 
persons, and greatly astonished them by answering 
mentally such questions as these: "What is the 



A GROUP OF SAMSONS. 207 

interest on £4,444 sterling for 4,444 clays at 4 per 
cent. ? " He gave a correct answer in two min- 
utes. When eleven years old he was asked to divide 
468,592,412,553 by 9,076, to which he gave a true 
answer in one minute. When twelve years old he 
was asked, " If a pendulum of a clock vibrates the dis- 
tance of 9f inches in a second of time, how many 
inches will it vibrate in 7 years, 14 days, 2 hours, 1 
minute, and 55 seconds ? " He spoke the answer in 
less than a minute. He invented processes of his 
own, distinct from those given in the book in arithme- 
tic, and could solve all the usual questions mentally 
more rapidly than others could with the aid of paper 
and pencil. 

Jedediah Buxton, although his grandfather was a 
clergyman and his father a school-master, was so de- 
ficient in his education that he could not even write ; 
his mental faculties were slow with the one wonderful 
exception of his power in mental arithmetic. After 
hearing a sermon he remembered and cared for noth- 
ing concerning it except the number of words which 
he had counted during its delivery. If a period of 
time or the size of an object were mentioned in his 
hearing he almost unconsciously began to count how 
many seconds or how many hair-breadths there were 
in it. He walked from Chesterfield to London on 
purpose to. have the gratification of seeing George II. ; 
and while in the metropolis he was taken much notice 
of by members of the Royal Society. If he went 
to the theater he occupied himself by counting the 
number of words uttered by each performer. If 
he walked across a field he could tell the number of 
square inches it contained. He would impose upon 



208 FA OT AND FICTION IN HOL 7 WRIT. 

himself the severest tasks ; one was to reckon how 
much a farthing w T ould amount to if doubled one 
hundred and forty times ; the result came out in such 
a stupendous number of pounds sterling as required 
thirty-nine places of figures to represent it. This 
problem was put to him : to find how many cubical 
eighths of an inch there are in a quadrangular mass 
measuring 23,145,789 yards long, 5,642,732 yards 
wide, and 54,965 yards thick. He answered this, as 
all others, mentally. He loved to calculate, and 
sometimes was fairly intoxicated, as he says, with 
reckoning. For instance, he determined how many 
grains, of eight different kinds of corn and pulse, and 
how many hairs an inch long, are contained in 200,000 
cubic miles. One thing is certain, no one could very 
well dispute the correctness of his work. He began, 
of course, by calculating on a single cube. He could 
suspend any of his problems for any length of time, 
and at any point, and resume them at pleasure, and 
could even converse on other subjects while thus en- 
gaged. Of his methods he could give no explanation. 
All he knew was that he could do it. . 

There once lived in Paris a boy named Vito Man- 
giamele, a Sicilian, the son of a shepherd, who when 
eleven years old possessed powers of calculation that 
were truly astonishing. On the 3d of July, 1839, MM. 
Arago, Lacroix, and other eminent members of the 
Academy of Science, met to test the wonderful pow- 
ers of this gifted child. They asked him several 
questions which they knew under ordinary circum- 
stances to be tedious of solution, such as the cube 
root of 3,796,416, and the tenth root of 2S2,475,249 ; 
the first of these he answered in half a minute, the 



A GROUP OF SAMSONS. 209 

second in three minutes. One question was of the 
following complicated character : " What number has 
the following proportions, that if its cube is added to 
5 times its square, and then 42 times the number, 
and the number 42 be subtracted from the result, the 
remainder is equal to or zero ? " M. Arago repeated 
the question a second time, but while he w T as finish- 
ing the last word the boy replied, "The number 
is 5." 

Zera Colburn, of Vermont, was another instance of 
this sort of Samsonian strength. He began when he 
was six years old to answer arithmetical questions of 
most difficult character. When he was eight years 
of age he was in London, where he astonished the peo- 
ple. He could in a few moments raise 8 to the sixteenth 
power ; extract the square root from sucli numbers as 
106,929, give the cube root of 268,336,125, and tell, 
when asked, how many seconds are contained in 45, 37? 
48, or almost any other number of years. The answers 
were all given in a few minutes, and sometimes in a 
few seconds. He w r as at this period ignorant of the 
ordinary rules of arithmetic, and did not know how 
or why particular modes of process came to his mind. 
At one time the Duke of Gloucester asked him to mul- 
tiply 21,734 by 543. The answer was given at once. 
Something in the boy's manner induced the duke to 
ask how he did it, from which it appeared that the 
boy arrived at the result by multiplying 65,202 by 
181, an equivalent process. But why he made this 
change in the factors neither he nor any one else could 
tell. 

We have a most interesting personage in Charles 

Grandemange, a French boy, who was in all respects 
14 



210 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

the most remarkable instance of natural genius in the 
department of mathematics the world has ever known. 
In the first place he was a physical wonder. The poor 
child was born without arms or legs, and could only 
be supported in an erect position by a sort of box in 
which he was compelled to live. His was a mere 
fragment of a human body, which in one age of the 
world and in some lands would have been cast away 
and left to die. But there are compensations in 
nature, and while this child was physically almost 
nothing his mental nature was marvelous. He wrote 
of himself as follows : 

"I was born on the 10th of June, 1835, at Epinal, 
without arms or legs. At my birth I was concealed 
by order of the physicians for fifteen days from the 
sight of my mother, and it was not until she had 
been prepared for the misfortune which had befallen 
her and me that I was at length placed in her care. 
When she began to nurse me I weighed less than a 
pound and a half. It will readily be believed that 
my childhood was early surrounded with omens suf- 
ficiently gloomy. Born thus mutilated, what kind of 
a future could I expect in this world ? I belonged to 
a family of laboring people, industrious and honest, 
but poor. My father, a carpenter by trade, had great 
difficulty even with what my mother, who was a 
weaver, could earn, to supply all the wants of four 
children. By means of constant care and watchful- 
ness my mother succeeded in bringing me up to an 
age when I conceived in the constant inaction in 
which I lived some vague intuition of the peculiar 
talent with which Providence had endowed me in 
return for my privations and difficulties. M. Pelicot, 



A GROUP OF SAMSONS. 211 

surgeon of the town, and M. Haxo, surgeon-major of 
the regiment of cavalry in garrison at Epinal, who 
had assisted at my birth, and received my poor little 
body, weighing in all then a pound and a half, with 
the clothes, were not willing to forget the way to the 
humble roof that sheltered me. They came from 
time to time to see me, and, being witnesses of the 
first and sufficiently rare inclinations that I showed 
for mental calculations, they addressed to me some 
questions, very simple at first, and then those a little 
more difficult, and finally ventured upon some of the 
more abstruse questions of arithmetic. In this way 
and without any instruction I became able to solve 
almost instantly the little enigmas of calculation 
which they put to me. Indeed, I soon became suffi- 
ciently skillful to attempt likewise and with equal suc- 
cess some little problems in the province of geometry, 
of which, as to the practical part, my father had the 
rudiments sufficiently well to instruct me. By the 
advice of the physicians and some savants who had 
visited me my father resolved to introduce me to 
certain educational establishments most esteemed in 
our country of Yosges and the neighboring depart- 
ments. The marked success that I obtained having 
emboldened me, I decided, after having lost my father, 
to visit Paris, the metropolis and center of science. 
I had the honor to appear there before a commission 
chosen to examine my intellectual faculties by the 
Academy of Science." 

In the examination to which this boy was subjected 
a series of problems the most obscure and complex 
were put to him during three long hours, and he 
solved them with a rapidity which might be called 



212 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

electric. He was asked to multiply a quantity con- 
sisting of two hundred figures by one consisting of 
ten or twelve. After a brief pause he made known 
the product, which was found to be correct, and which 
would have required on paper perhaps half an hour of 
the most rapid calculation. One person among others 
asked him to give the remainder of the division by 
nine of an immense number in sextillions, quin til- 
lions, quadrillions, trillions, billions, millions, etc. 
The whole sum was scarcely stated when already the 
young calculator had answered like a flash, " Four is 
the remainder " — a reply the correctness and instan- 
taneousness of which astonished the audience and the 
interrogator himself. This wonderful prodigy had 
a handsome and intellectual face, and, strange to say, 
though armless, could write beautifully, which he 
did by holding the pen between the cheek and the 
stump which supplied the place of the right arm. 
He could even execute pen-flourishes which possessed 
some considerable degree of grace and beauty. Was 
he not the equal of Samson ? And did not his mar- 
velous powers come from God ? 

How touching and beautiful the story of the blind ! 
If " truth is stranger than fiction " anywhere, it is 
so in the history of the blind. They have filled al- 
most every position in life, and when they have 
risen to distinction, as they have in numerous in- 
stances, it has been of a character to win the ap- 
plause of the world. From blind Homer to " Blind 
Tom " the world has had many marvels. 

History tell us of Zisca, the Bohemian reformer, 
who, as a general, avenged the death .of John Huss 
and Jerome of Prague by his consummate general- 



A GROUP OF SAMSONS. 213 

ship on the field. Though blind he was a terror to 
the foes of Bohemia, driving before him the hosts of 
Sigismund. If the story of Zisca were in the Bible 
some would not believe it. Dr. Nicholas Sannderson 
lost his eye-sight when he was a mere babe a few 
months old ; vet he whose vision was muffled deep 
and dark in the drapery of night became the successor 
of Sir Isaac Newton in a renowned university — a 
teacher of the laws of light who never saw the light 
excepting when a babe. Here was blind Huber, who 
knew more about the nature of the honey-bee than 
any man living. Blind men have acted as guides in 
some European cities. John Gough, though blind, 
became so expert as a botanist that he could give 
the name of almost any plant, however rare, merely 
by the touch. Some of the ablest divines, lawyers, 
and physicians of the .world have been sightless. 
Mechanics skilled in the construction of edge-tools, 
watches, and clocks have groped their way in dark- 
ness. 

One of the most remarkable instances on record 
was that of Joseph Strong, of Carlisle, England. At 
four years he lost his eye-sight. This blind boy early 
developed a genius for the construction of musical 
instruments, and at fifteen years was ambitious to 
build an organ, which he had learned to play. For 
the purpose of gaining a knowledge of the construc- 
tion of the organ he concealed himself one afternoon 
in the cathedral when the congregation had retired, 

O O 7 

and proceeded to make the much-desired investiga- 
tion. He occupied himself until midnight measuring 
and calculating, when he began to try the different 
stops and the proportions they bore to each other. 



214 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

On hearing the organ at such an hour the neighbors 
were alarmed. What could it mean? Some one 
courageously entered the sacred edifice, and lo ! Joseph 
Strong, the blind boy, was playing the instrument. 
The dean, as was his official duty, we suppose, repri- 
manded the innocent little fellow for his daring, but 
generously gave him permission to play whenever he 
desired to do so. 

The boy now went to work and built his first organ, 
which is yet in existence. It is another illustration 
of the wonderful things which have occurred in the 
world's annals. If any one should say in reference 
to these things, " I don't believe them," he would call 
down on him the scorn of the intelligent w^orld. 



WORLD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANVAS. 215 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WORLD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANYAS. 

IN this chapter nothing new is claimed, unless it be 
in the application of the facts brought out to the 
general support of Bible prodigies — if it can be af- 
firmed that the Bible contains the account of mere 
prodigies. I do not hold that the existence of such a 
character as Blind Tom or Caesar Ducornet proves 
that Samson was what is claimed for him ; but if there 
have been such marvels in modern times as these it 
shows at least that they have always been possible. 
Samson was more than an exceptional athlete, lie was 
the creature of providence, and was endowed by his 
Maker with his great strength. But may not the 
same providence have given to others of God's chil- 
dren gifts of surpassing excellence, even greater and 
far more wonderful than muscular power ? 

There have been some most wonderful instances of 
musical genius, manifesting itself even in infancy. 
Two of these occurred in the Wesley family. Charles 
Wesley, son of the well-known hymn-writer of the 
same name, and nephew of John Wesley, was born at 
Bristol, England, December 11, 1757. Nearly from 
his birth his mother used to quiet and amuse the infant 
with her harpsichord. Even before he could speak 
his musical ear was so acute that he would not per- 
mit his mother to play with one hand only, but 
would take the other and place it on the keys. Soon 



216 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

attempting to play himself, Lis mother used to tie him 
in a chair at the harpsichord, where he would amuse 
himself for hours together. When only two years 
and nine months old he astonished his parents by 
playing a tune in correct time. Soon afterward he 
could play any air he chanced to hear with a true 
bass added, as if spontaneously, without study or 
hesitation. He then seemed to have little respect or 
reverence for any one not a musician. When called 
to play for a stranger he would inquire in his childish 
prattle, " Is he a musiker ? " and if the answer were 
in the affirmative would run to the instrument with 
ready eagerness. 

Samuel Wesley, his brother, was born in 1766, 
and evinced a talent for music almost as early as 
Charles. He could play a tune when two years and 
eleven months old, and could put a correct bass to airs 
long before he had acquired a knowledge of musical 
notation. He constantly attended his brother, playing 
or rather making believe to play, on a chair or table 
while Charles played the harpsichord. With the ad- 
vantage of such an example he soon outstripped his 
brother. He learned to read from words of songs in 
music-books, and could compose music long before he 
could write. At the age of eight years he surprised 
the musical world by an oratorio entirely his own. In 
early life Charles was brought under the notice of 
George III., and often had the honor of entertaining 
the royal leisure by performances of Handel's music. 
But he never won any great distinction as a musician 
in after life. His brother Samuel achieved a greater 
success, but neither fulfilled the great promise of their 
precocious youth. 



WORLD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANVAS. 217 

A very remarkable character appeared in the per- 
son of William Crotch, who was born at Norwich in 
July, 1775. The father of this boy was a carpenter 
by trade, and though he was not a skilled musician 
was fond of the art, and with great ingenuity suc- 
ceeded in building an organ, on which he could play 
a few simple tunes. About 1776, at Christmas-time, 
when the infant William was not oyer eighteen 
months old, he discovered a great inclination for 
music by leaving even the table when the organ was 
being played ; and six months afterward he would 
touch the key-notes of his favorite tunes to induce his 
father to play them. Soon after this, as he was unable 
to name the tunes, he would play the two or three 
first notes of them when he thought the key-note did 
not sufficiently express the air he wished played. 
Hearing a lady play one day whose excellence charmed 
him, he concluded to attempt to play himself. The 
same evening, when being carried through the room 
where the organ was, on his way to bed, the infant 
screamed and struggled violently to go to the instru- 
ment, and on his wish being complied with he eagerly 
beat down the keys with his little fist. The next day, 
being left with his brother, a youth of fourteen, in 
the same room, he persuaded the latter to blow the 
bellows, while he himself struck the keys of the organ. 
At first he played at random, but presently he pro- 
duced with one hand so much of " God Save the 
King " as to awaken the curiosity of his father, then 
in the work-shop, who came into the room to know 
who it was that was playing. On being informed he 
was, of course, greatly surprised. At this time the 
young musician was two years and three weeks old. 



218 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

Next day he made himself master of the treble of the 
second part, and the day after he attempted the bass, 
which he performed correctly in every particular, ex- 
cepting the note immediately before the close ; this, 
being an octave below the preceding sound, was be- 
yond the reach of his little hand. In a few more 
months he mastered both treble and bass in certain 
selections, and erelong from this period he could ex- 
temporize the bass to any melody, whether performed 
by himself or others. Like the Wesleys, he never rose 
to any thing beyond local fame. Premature musical 
powers, like other precocious displays, seldom realize 
the anticipations to which they give rise. 

Among the human wonders of the world there 
never was a greater than the so-called " Blind Tom," 
of musical fame. If he did not have the exquisite 
finish of a perfectly trained performer he had all the 
force and originality that heaven could inspire in a 
poor mortal. We often listened to him, and always 
with great astonishment. Was Samson strong — mar- 
velously and miraculously so ? We claim the same for 
Tom. Samson pulled down a house, a temple. Tom 
truly " brought down " many a house. In the great 
halls of Europe and America thousands cheered him 
to the echo. Only God could create the Samson of 
the Bible ; only God could create the Samson of the 
piano. 

There he sat before his piano, in the presence of 
some great audience — a lump of black flesh, a swarthy 
Negro of the Guinea type, with protruding heels and 
blubber lips, ape-jawed and open-mouthed, blind from 
his birth. On his countenance was stamped the vacant 
grin of idiocy, from which he was removed scarce a 



WORLD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANVAS. 219 

degree. But let us wait at this threshold and inquire 
somewhat about him. Just when he was born and 
where is not precisely known, for he turned up one 
day along with his mother on a Georgia plantation, 
the result of a purchase in the old slave times. But 
all of this is of such recent date there is no chance 
to relegate this story to the age of myths. This 
idiotic creature was more than he seemed to be. 
When bid off by the planter he was most likely 
thrown in as so much extra weight, which might in 
some way be used — but how? One thing we know, 
God anointed him with the " holv chrism" that should 
make of him the most remarkable musical genius 
of any age. The infant Mozart was wonderfully 
dowered, and when a mere child of five years aston- 
ished the world ; but Tom was more wonderful, inas- 
much as he had none of Mozart's intelligence, and was 
blind. 

Blind Tom ! his history is pathetic. He owned not 
even a name, and with all his marvelous gifts sustained 
to humanity in general about the same relation that 
a mushroom sustains to a rose-bush. " What a child of 
God ! " we instinctively said the first time we saw and 
heard him, as with eyes closed in night, his head 
thrown far back on his shoulders, lying on the back, 
indeed, he took his seat before his favorite instrument 
and, sweeping the key-board, rained down on the au- 
dience a perfect shower of melody. Now it came in 
ripples and plashes, then in wild thunders — at one 
time soft as a lullaby, and anon with the crash of 
battle. He and the piano seemed to be one and insep- 
arable. He would rise and turn his back to the instru- 
ment and finger the keys behind him ; he played a 



220 FA OT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

tune with each hand and whistled a third at the same 
time. "Wonderful ! 

There w T as no outgrowth of intellect or soul in Tom. 
His world was that of sound and melody. Indeed, 
sound of any kind always delighted him, even the 
crying of a child when he was himself a mere baby. 
If a piano was touched in his presence even before 
he could walk it would cause him to roll about on the 
floor in ecstasy. And it is said that he w T ould even 
bite his little brothers and sisters to make them emit 
cries of pain that he might hear the sound. 

It was somewhere in the fifties (1856 or 1857) when 
the phenomenal powers latent in this poor child were 
suddenly developed, and' which stamped him the 
anomaly of the day. Tom, though a slave child, was 
not denied his master's house. Indeed, he was, 
through his very helplessness, an object of pity. Ly- 
ing in the hot sun on the steps of the mansion, he re- 
ceived many a kind word from its occupants as they 
passed in and out over the broad verandas. One 
night in summer-time the family were awakened by 
the sound of music, which came from the drawing- 
room. The notes were produced by some one whose 
touch was timid, but singularly delicate ; now a strain 
from some simple air, and then something more diffi- 
cult. What could it mean? The mystery must be 
solved ; and going down-stairs they found Tom, who 
had been left in the hall asleep, and possibly curled 
away under some table unnoticed, like a dog, now 
seated at the piano in the dark and in ecstasies of de- 
light, breaking out at the end of each successful strain 
into shouts of laughter, delivering rollicking kicks 
with his heels and clapping his chubby hands. This 



WORLD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANVAS. 221 

was the first time lie had ever touched a piano-key. 
Of course he at once became a wonder, as well as an 
after-dinner amusement. But no one realized then 
the depth of his nature. This all took place in the 
days when spiritualism was rife — that long-gone 
craze ; and at once he was supposed to be under the 
" influence " of some musical ghost, that spoke through 
him in wild harmony and broken strains of startling 
beauty and pathos. No seal was put upon the piano, 
but Tom was allowed the freest possible access to the 
instrument, though he was not subjected to any mu- 
sical training. He never received a lesson on any 
thing in all his life. When the poor child had once 
touched the keys he and the piano were friends ever 
afterward. If this little black figure had ever heard 
a tune in his life he knew it now and could produce it. 
Music of various grades, plantation ditties, sonnets, 
snatches of the masters which he had heard, seemed 
to be packed away in his soul, and he only needed to 
place his fat baby fingers on the ivory keys when they 
all flowed forth in soft murmurs, like water from a 
spring, or as violently as electric shocks from a charged 
battery. He literally made music, and these plantation 
people listened to strains that had never been heard be- 
fore. They were born in the carcass of this little black 
nameless and unknown child. But as tradition has it, 
they were u sad minors, vexing the content of the 
hearer." What wonder that such a soul should fruit its 
lowly conditions of darkness and misery in sad refrains. 
From this time Tom went forth to a wider field. 
Neighboring cities were permitted to hear and see the 
blind boy. Crowds hung entranced on the music 
which fairly leaped from the tips of his fingers. But 



222 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

musicians were skeptical, and said it could not be ; lie 
must be a pretender, a skilled performer in disguise. 
Tom was subjected to the severest and most critical 
tests, tests bordering on harshness. His powers could 
not pass along unchallenged. But Tom w T as victorious, 
and he went forth to the world an acknowledged 
prodigy. In the every-day apparent intellect, in rea- 
son or judgment, he was almost a nonentity. He may 
be said to have been incapable of comprehending the 
simplest conversation on ordinary topics. At thirty 
years he had the petulant disposition of a spoiled child 
of three. Once, it is said, when the agent attempted to 
make him stop playing a piano in a high-toned hotel 
at three o'clock in the morning, Tom seized him and 
threw him through the door ; and in Washington he 
once threw a man down-stairs who came into his 
room. And yet he had an affection for a friend very 
much like a dog. He could detect the step of one he 
loved in a crowd. His memory was marvelous. He 
could repeat a discussion of fifteen minutes length from 
the remembrance of the word-sounds accurately and 
yet not understand the meaning of a single sentence. 
Songs in German and French after a single hearing 
he could reproduce, not only literally in words, but in 
notes, style, expression. When in London, soon after 
he began his career, a flute was procured for him of a 
very complicated pattern, having twenty two keys. 
He would frequently rise up at night and play this 
instrument, imitating upon it all sorts of sounds which 
he might hear or had heard. He is thus described by 
one who saw him often : " When at home in Georgia 
he lives in a building about two hundred yards from 
the house, and there remains alone with his piano, 



WORLD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANVAS. 223 

playing all day and night, like one possessed with 
madness. Bad weather has an effect upon his music. 
In cloudy, rainy seasons he plays somber music in 
minor chords, and when the sun shines and the birds 
sing he indulges in waltzes and light music. Some- 
times he will hammer away for hours, producing the 
most horrible discords imaginable. Suddenly a change 
comes over him and he indulges in magnificent bursts 
of harmony, taken from the best productions of the 
masters. Since his childhood he has been an idiot, 
and he played nearly as well at the age of seven as he 
does now ; but now his repertoire is much larger, as 
he can play any thing he has ever heard. He now 
plays about seven thousand pieces, and picks up new 
ones every-where." 

When twelve years of age this boy, blind and igno- 
rant of every phase of musical science, could interpret 
severely classical compositions in music with a clearness 
of conception and a skill in mechanism truly remark- 
able. " Ilis concerts," writes one, " usually include any 
themes selected by the audience from the higher grade 
of Italian or German opera. His comprehension of 
the meaning of music as a prophetic or historical 
voice, which few truly utter and fewer understand, 
is clear and vivid. . . . The peculiar power which 
Tom possesses, however, is one which requires no 
scientific knowledge of music in the audience to ap- 
preciate. Placed at the instrument with any musi- 
cian, he plays a perfect bass accompaniment to the 
treble of music heard for the first time as he plays it. 
Then, taking the seat vacated by the performer, he 
instantly gives the entire piece, intact in brilliancy 
and symmetry, not a note lost or misplaced." 



224 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL 7 WRIT. 

The selections of music by which this power of 
Tom's was tested were sometimes fourteen and 
sixteen pages in length. On one occasion at the 
"White House, after a long concert, he was tried with 
two pieces, one thirteen and the other twenty pages 
long, and was successful. 

There, too, was Caesar. Ducornet, the painter.* 
On the 6th of January, 1806, there was born in the 
humble dwelling of a poor shoe-maker in the Rue St. 
Jacques, at Lille, France, an infant so strangely help- 
less and deformed that the attendants at his birth 
hesitated to show- it to its parents. They regarded it 
with a species of horror. Its utter feebleness fore- 
boded its speedy death, and that they were ready to 
hail as a merciful dispensation both for mother and 
babe. But the mother took it to her bosom with all a 
mother's love, and the helpless little stranger did not 
die. Some days after, when the poor shoe-maker and 
his wife were left alone with their new-born son, they 
might have been seen stooping, with a mingled ex- 
pression of terror, of pity, and parental compassion, 
over a cradle in which there rolled and twisted about 
a little liisus naturae, sent into the world without 
arms, and whose lower extremities could be described 
as nothing better than a kind of bony stalks, with 
the barest indications of thighs and what might pass 
for rudiments of legs. On either little foot there 
were but four toes. It was happy for both these 
humble parents that the spectacle of their child's 
wretched condition, so far from exciting discontent 
and loathing, stirred up the deepest springs of affec- 
tion in their bosoms, and they loved him all the more. 

* Article in National Magazine. 



WORLD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANVAS. 225 

Such was the entry upon life of the famous Caesar 
Ducornet, historical painter, victor in the academic 
schools, winner of the gold medal in the exhibition 
of the Louvre, and corresponding member of the Im- 
perial Society of Science, of Agriculture, and the 
Arts at Lille. 

The early infancy of Ducornet is not perhaps to be 
regarded as unhappy ; innocence is unconscious of its 
defects. Moreover, people found a charm in the vig- 
orous and determined expression of his face ; so much 
sprightly and precocious intelligence in his look ; so 
much characteristic and curious dexterity in all his 
movements, that every one noticed him with sympa- 
thy and treated him with tenderness. Meanwhile the 
infant grew in years and stature, and the poor parents 
had to ponder the difficult problem of a profession for 
their boy. The shoe-maker gained a humble subsist- 
ence by the labor of his hands ; but Providence had 
given the young Caesar no hands to labor with, and 
they puzzled themselves in vain, since it was plain he 
could work at no known trade, as to what was to be 
done with him. Many poor parents in such a predic- 
ament would have made a beggar of the boy, and 
have found their account in it, or they would have 
hired him out for exhibition by some traveling show- 
man ; but the father of Ducornet was an honest and 
independent artisan who knew the true dignity of a 
workman, and was incapable of harboring any thought 
of this kind. Still the question arose, What was to 
be done ? They had remarked that in his childish 
games the infant made use of his feet with most mar- 
velous ability : he threw the ball to his comrades, 

cut things he wanted to cut with a knife, drew lines 
15 



226 FA CT AND FICTION IN SOL T WRIT. 

with chalk on the floor of the room, clipped out in 
paper figures and images with his mother's scissors ; 
in a word, every thing which other children did with 
their Lands he did with equal if not excelling adroit- 
ness with his four-toed feet. One day they surprised 
him in the act of drawing upon paper some masterly 
capital letters. An old writing-master named Du- 
moncel saw them with astonishment, and immediately 
proposed to the shoe-maker to take the boy under his 
gratuitous instruction. In less than a year the little 
Ducornet, we cannot say wrote the finest hand, but 
had become the first penman in the worthy Dumon- 
cel's class. But the writing-master soon had fresh 
food for admiration. In addition to the boy's fine 
Avriting his copy-books began all at once to be illus- 
trated by a crowd of designs remarkable for their 
originality and correctness of outline. These were 
so abundant and striking that Dumoncel, astonished, 
carried the productions of his pupil to the professor 
of design in the Academy at Lille. This second dis- 
covery had the same success as the first. The pro- 
fessor, in his turn, fell in love with the prodigious 
aptitude of the young Ducornet, and did not rest 
until he had gained his admittance as a student of de- 
sign at the Lille Academy ; only by a delicate atten- 
tion the professor installed him in the class of the 
adults, to save him from the rude curiosity of the boys 
of his own age, who constituted the elementary chapel. 
At the Academy of Lille Csesir Ducornet carried off 
successively the highest prize in each of the courses, 
and finished by having decreed to him the great 
medal in the living-model class. This last victory 
was regarded as an event in the good town of Lille. 



WORLD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANVAS. 227 

From this period must be dated a friendship which 
proved the greatest happiness of Dueornet's life. It 
was now that he became intimate with a man who 
was destined to act as a guardian angel through the 
remainder of his career — a man of true nobilitv of 
mind, wdiose life had been one long devotion to the 
arts and artists of his native town, and who lavished 
upon Ducornet from his childhood to his death all 
the tenderness of a parent. M. Demailly, of Lille, 
adopted the poor boy, and undertook the charge of 
his future life. lie took him into his house, fed 
him, clothed him, encouraged him in his efforts, in 
his trials, and at the same time, being himself an ex- 
cellent judge and a distinguished amateur, aided him 
in his counsels. He went farther : he racked his in- 
genuity in the contrivance of seats, of easels, and of 
implements for painting adapted to the abnormal 
structure of his protege. When we reflect that the 
benevolent hand which guided the first steps of the 
Lille artist was reserved to close the eyes that death 
glazed forty years afterward, are we not justified 
in believing that Providence prepares such loving 
hearts for the express solace of misfortune ? 

But another earnest of success was now at hand. 
About this time the Duke d'Angouleme, going to 
visit the museum at Lille, found our young artist 
there in the act of finishing a beautiful copy from a 
picture by Vandyke. Astonished at the sight of so 
strange a being executing a most difficult work of 
art, the prince took a lively interest in his fate ; he 
conferred upon him a pension of twelve hundred 
francs and prevailed upon him to go to Paris, there 
to continue his studies at greater advantage. The 



228 FA OT AND FICTION IN IIOL 7 WRIT. 

town of Lille, less princely in its generosity, increased 
the artist's pension by three hundred francs more. 

Upon tliis our artist sets out for Paris, whither, to 
complete his satisfaction, his friend, M. Demailly, is 
not slow to follow him. Now begins the grand strug- 
gle for reputation. He enters the Royal Academy 
of Painting, and at the same, time his benefactor pro- 
cures him admission into the studio of M. Lethiere. 
Six months after his entrance at the Royal Academy, 
in 1826, he there obtains the third medal, and in the 
following year the second. In 1826 he presents him- 
self as one of the candidates for the great prize to 
be awarded at Rome. 

Here occurs a circumstance rather curious to re- 
cord. The examination has commenced ; the artist 
has fully succeeded in his preliminary trials, but the 
moment comes for competition, and now the profes- 
sors, considering the diminutive figure and strange 
conformation of Ducornet, declare him practically in- 
capable of managing a canvas prescribed by the regu- 
lation (about five feet by four), and close the arena 
against him. Thereupon Ducornet retires, and to 
vindicate himself in the face of their unqualifying 
decision he executes upon these same regulation di- 
mensions his first picture, " The Parting of Hector 
and Andromache," which may be seen at this moment 
on the walls of the museum at Lille. 

In 1829 the professors of the Royal Academy re- 
voke their decision ; Ducornet executes the proposed 
subject, " Jacob Refusing to Release the Young Benja- 
min to his Brethren." His picture, according to the 
opinion of "the best judges, deserves at least a second 
prize ; but the academy cannot condescend to grace 



WOULD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANVAS. 229 

with victory a man without arms. Thereupon M. 
Lethiere, protesting against their injustice, has the 
picture exhibited along with the assembled prizes, 
during a visit of the Duchesse de Berry. The prin- 
cess praises the work of the maimed painter, and the 
minister of the interior commands him to paint " St. 
Louis Administering Justice under an Oak," for the 
museum of his native town. 

At this period Ducornet quits the studio of M. 
Lethiere to follow his own independent course. The 
first- fruit of his emancipated labor is a picture rep- 
resenting the " Slave Market," now in the keeping 
of the museum of Arras. During the years which 
followed upon the revolution of 1830 Ducornet ob- 
tained from the government a commission for 
painting several of those portraits of Louis Philippe 
which, all precisely alike, were distributed by hundreds 
to the departments — an occupation sufficiently weari- 
some to the mind of a true artist, but to which pov- 
erty must resign itself. While Ducornet is thus 
laboring to gain a subsistence for himself and father, 
the state deprives him of his pension of twelve hun- 
dred francs ; and the town of Lille, following the 
example of the state, withdraws its three hundred, 
thus admonishing him that misfortunes rarely come 
singly. 

Nevertheless, poor Ducornet does not suffer himself 
to be cast down by this reverse of fortune ; on the 
contrary, he redoubles the activity of his labors. In 
1834 two of his works, " An Episode in the Siege of 
Antwerp," and " Magdalen at the Feet of the Sav- 
iour," are admitted to the exhibition of the Louvre. 
The last-mentioned of these two pictures is eleven 



230 FA GT AND FICTION IN IIOL Y WRIT. 

feet high and eight feet wide. We cite these dimen- 
sions because they are very significant when we 
recollect the deformity of the painter and the exclu- 
sion of 1828. 

"We pass over a number of Ducornet's productions of 
less importance, which would occupy too much space 
were they mentioned in detail. Let us record, how- 
ever, his successes at the several exhibitions at the 
Louvre. In 1840 he gained a medal of the third 
class, in 1841 a medal of the second class, in 1843 a 
medal of the first class, and at length, in 1844, the 
great gold medal was awarded him for his picture of 
" Christ at the Sepulcher " — a work of uncontestable 
excellence. 

Ducornet was desirous of painting the portrait of 
General Negrier, who had been killed at the barricades 
of June, 1848. The painter had never seen the de- 
ceased general. The portrait was to be full-length, 
and for a guide he had only a tolerably well-executed 
bust and a few lithographs of the deceased soldier. 

"No matter how long I live," writes one who 
visited him while at work at this portrait, " I shall 
never forget the wonderful impression I received upon 
entering his paint-room. There, extended upon an 
easel, stood a huge canvas, on which the image of 
General Negrier was beginning to assume the sem- 
blance of life; and across the whole extent of the 
canvas ran with incredible agility, like a fly upon a 
wall, the stunted trunk of a .man, surmounted by a 
noble head, with expansive brow and eyes of fire ; and 
wherever this apparition passed along the canvas he 
left the traces of color behind him. On approaching a 
few paces nearer we were aware of a lofty but slender 



WORLD WONDERS— CHORD AND CANVAS. 231 

scaffolding in front of the canvas, up and down and 
across the steps and stays of which climbed and 
crouched and twisted — it is impossible to describe 
how — the shapeless being we had come to see. We 
saw then that he was deprived of arms, that he had 
no thighs, that his short legs were closely united to 
the trunk, and that his feet were wanting of a toe 
each. By one of his feet he held a palette, by the 
other a pencil ; in his mouth he also carried a large 
brush and a second pencil ; and in all this harness he 
moved and rolled and writhed and painted in a man- 
ner more than marvelous ! This portrait adorns the 
rooms of the artillery corps of Lille, and, what is 
really astonishing, it was painted by a man without 
arms and almost without legs, and is distinguished 
for wonderful resemblance to its subject.' 3 



282 FA CT AND FICTION IN IIOL 7 WRIT, 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

WORLD WONDERS — TREES. 

MUCH has been said about the " big stories " or 
the wonderful things related in the Bible. How 
could it be otherwise ? 

The moral world, as well as the physical, is great. 
Both have had their origin in the mind of God. We 
have seen in previous chapters how full nature is of 
marvels, whether it be star, animal, man, or worm ; 
the microscope, no less than the telescope, opens to 
our vision a universe. Among the things that grow 
out of the ground every-where, seen every day, and 
consequently the less noticed and thought of, is a 
tree. What an object to look at and study as it 
towers far up into the air at times, as if to kiss the 
passing clouds, and spreads out its branches so grace- 
fully ! One tree in particular I shall not forget : it 
was of the species known as the American elm, and 
grew in my front door-yard. I remember how 
through the long hot summer this dear old tree would 
cast its cooling shadow over us. That single tree gave 
us more comfort each summer than can well be ex- 
pressed — more than five hundred dollars would have 
purchased at a fashionable watering-place, where you 
pay for much and often get but little. Intimately 
connected with our lives for three years, as it was, I 
desire to erect to its memory this monument. When 
I was returning from an absence, and came in sight 



WORLD WONDERS— TREES. 283 

of the beautiful tree, I always felt like saluting it by 
taking off my hat and shaking hands with it. 

Do you say that trees have no hands to shake? The 
Bible says, " All the trees of the field shall clap their 
hands ;" but of course it is figurative. 

We could describe its botanical characters as one can 
talk of a friend's eyes, hair, or complexion. My tree 
had come up as some people have come, through hard- 
ships. It had been used in its earlier life as a hitching- 
post until the horses had well-nigh destroyed it. I 
put a stop to that, however, by setting some hitching- 
posts so far removed from the tree as to save it from 
any further danger from that source. 

With all its friendly acts at times it used to create 
some annoyance, especially in the winter, when the 
wind was strong, by reaching out its long slender 
branches and switching the side of the house when we 
were trying to sleep ; but, remembering the delightful 
shade it cast in the summer, I readily forgave this 
misdemeanor. My tree used to make considerable 
litter when it went to bed. Some people throw off 
their clothes anywhere and every-where when they 
retire. So did my tree. Is not autumn the trees' 
bed-time? Is not winter their night of rest? Are 
not the leaves their cast-off garments ? Again I 
thought of the sweet shade of the summer, and for- 
gave all for the good the tree had done. I just 
quietly raked up these cast-off garments — a million or 
two of them — and wheeled them off to the barn for 
horse-bedding, knowing that my dear tree, like many 
of human kind, would come out with a brand-new 
suit in the early spring. 

There it stood, and yet stands, quite probably, in its 



234 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

living beauty a monument to human thoughtf ulness ; 
for it was dug up when a mere sapling and placed 
there by a young clergyman "once upon a time," 
which required only a couple of hours' work. " Blessed 
is the man who planteth a tree !" Up in the graceful 
curving branches of that tree the birds built their 
nests in the spring-time and reared their young. 
From these same brandies they sang their matin 
songs and chanted their vespers. How often have 
we watched them from the window as they circulated 
among the branches, when it seemed a very paradise 
to them ! So the man who planted the tree blessed 
his fellow mortals, and the birds too. 

Trees are not alike in their appearance, to say 
nothing of other qualities, any more than men and 
women are alike. We never look at a grand tree wav- 
ing its branches in the breezes but we think of the 
roots away down under the sod in the dampness and 
darkness working on busily, day and night, to keep the 
tree alive. The strong stem, the graceful branches, the 
leaves, flowers, and fruits, all depend on the roots hid 
away under-ground. They constitute the " working 
class" in the tree world. Edward Everett, when 
speaking once of the relations of labor, said : " I have 
now in my hands a gold watch which combines em- 
bellishment and utility In happy proportion, and is 
often considered a very valuable appendage to the 
person of a gentleman. Its hands and face, chain and 
case, are of chased and burnished gold. Its gold seals 
sparkle with the ruby, topaz, sapphire, and emerald. 
I open it and find that the works, without which this 
elegantly furnished case would be a mere shell, and 
those hands be motionless and those figures meaning- 



WORLD WONDERS— TREES. 235 

less, are made of brass. Investigate still further, and 
ask, What is the spring by which all these are put in 
motion made of ? I am told it is made of steel. I 
ask, What is steel ? The reply is that it is iron which 
has undergone a certain process. So then I find the 
mainspring — without which this watch would always 
be motionless, and its hands, figures, and embellish- 
ments but toys — is not of gold, that is not sufficiently 
good; nor of brass, that would not do; but of iron. 
Iron, then, is the only precious metal. And this 
watch is an emblem of society ; its hands and figures, 
which tell the hour of the day, resemble the master- 
spirits of the age, to whose movements every eye is 
directed. Its useless but sparkling appendages are 
the aristocracy. Its works of brass are the middle 
class, by the increasing intelligence and power of 
W'hich the master-spirits of the age are moved. And 
its iron mainspring, shut up in a box, always at work, 
but never thought of, except when it is disorderly, 
broken, or wants winding up, symbolizes the laboring 
classes who are shut up in obscurity, and, though 
constantly at work and absolutely necessary to the 
movements of society, as the iron mainspring is to the 
gold watch, are never thought of except when they 
require their wages or are in some want or disorder 
of some kind or another." 

Trees have their law of life. The bark grows 
toward the center, and the wood grows outward by 
concentric layers which are piled up one above the 
other. A ring is produced each year, so that the tree 
will show as many circles as it has endured years. 

It is said by naturalists that the part which looks 
toward the north is narrower, and its rings are more 



286 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

close and dense than the others. So it happens that 
the trunks of trees are slightly flattened in a north 
and south direction, while they expand toward the east 
and west. Some trees grow more rapidly than others ; 
the great size of certain species is well known. In 
the forests of Germany there have been trees of enor- 
mous proportions ; one is described, from the trunk of 
which a canoe was made large enough to carry safely 
thirty persons. The Rev. J. Ray, an English botan- 
ist, tells of an oak existing in Germany which was 
large enough to be transformed into a citadel. The 
plane-trees on the banks of the Bosporus and Black 
Seas are of almost incredible size. Pliny, in his Nat- 
iiral History, states that in his time, which was nearly 
two thousand years ago, there was in Lycia a thriving 
plane-tree in the trunk of which was a grotto eighty- 
one feet in circumference, the whole extent of which 
nature had tapestried with green and velvet moss. 
This cavitv was converted into a hall, where on one 
occasion a supper was given by Lucinius Mutiamus, 
governor of the province, to eighteen guests. De Can- 
dolle informs us that in the neighborhood of Constan- 
tinople a lime-tree existed once the trunk of which 
was one hundred and fifty feet in circumference. In 
Normandy an oak is still standing which has been 
converted into a chapel and is known as " The Chapel 
Oak of Allouville," in which is an altar dedicated to 
the Virgin Mary, where occasionally mass is held. 
Above the chapel is a sleeping-room which has been 
hollowed out, and to which steps lead from the out- 
side. This oak is thirty feet in diameter near the 
ground. In the neighborhood of Smyrna there are 
some trees of such vast dimensions that openings have 



WORLD WONDERS— TREES. 237 

been made through the stems large enough to allow 
the passage of a soldier on horseback fully equipped. 
The famous cedars of Lebanon rose to a height of 
about one hundred and fifty feet. The wax-palm on 
the Andes " balances its waving crown " in the bosom 
of the clouds two hundred feet above the heights 
whereon it grows. 

While the giant trees of the eastern world have 
been known for ages, those of the western world were 
unknown until 1853, when they were discovered by 
Mr. William Lobb, a scientific traveler and naturalist. 
They were first met with in a solitary district on the 
elevated slope of the Sierra Madre Mountains, in Cal- 
averas County, Cal., about five hundred feet above 
the level of the sea, and all growing within the cir- 
cuit of a mile or two. Their situation was at the 
head-waters of the San Antonio River. 

There were only about one hundred of these ver- 
itable giants of the vegetable kingdom discovered 
by Mr. Lobb. The smallest of them was fifteen feet 
in diameter. Though large they were not unsightly. 
One writer, in describing them, says : " Long fringes 
and festoons of yellow moss and lichen hang around 
their proud trunks; a parasite growing from their 
roots shoots its graceful stems adorned with bracts 
and rose-colored flowers to a height of ten feet. The 
place ha& thus the double charm of beauty and mag- 
nificence." 

These giants are a species of pine-tree known to 
the botanist as conifers, and, standing there for 
centuries wrestling with the storms, it is not strange 
that their tops are broken and ragged, while Indian 
camp-fires have injured others at the base. Exca- 



288 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

vations have been made in some of them by repeated 
burnings sufficiently large to enable a good-sized 
family to obtain shelter. 

These trees are not all of the same age ; „ there 
was one large one, known as the "Big Tree," which 
was particularly famous. It required the services 
of five men throughout the working-days of one 
whole month to fell this giant of the centuries. 
The work was not accomplished with axes in the 
ordinary way, but with huge boring instruments 
constructed for the purpose. When the monster 
lay upon the earth, the victim of human cupidity, 
it took three weeks to strip off its bark from the 
first fifty-two feet of its trunk. That the tree was 
cut down for the sake of the " almighty dollar " is 
certain, for one side was flattened for a bowling-alley, 
and at the end of it a saloon was built. A wagon and 
horses could travel easily along the overthrown stem ; 
which, when flattened, formed a roadway twenty- 
four feet wide, without counting the bark, which would 
be about three feet more. The stump was turned into 
good financial account, as on its surface, smoothed off 
carefully, a pavilion was erected for the accommoda- 
tion of visitors. By counting the number of annual 
rings in a transverse section it was ascertained that 
this monster of the forest must have been consider- 
ably over three thousand years old. It was a mere 
sapling when Samson was slaughtering the Philistines, 
or ^Eneas carrying off Anchises on his filial shoulders. 
It was in its prime when Hannibal was thundering at 
the gates of Eorae. 

These trees were named. There was the " Miner's 
Cabin," three hundred feet high and eighty-five feet 



WORLD WONDERS— TREES. 239 

in circumference ; the " Old Bachelor," the "Hermit," 
standing off a little from the rest, and which was esti- 
mated to contain 725,000 feet of lumber; the "Hus- 
band and "Wife," two hundred feet high, and leaning 
toward each other a little ; the " Three Sisters," grow- 
ing apparently from the same roots, ninety-two feet in 
girth and three hundred feet high ; " Mother and Son," 
the one three hundred and twenty-five feet, the other 
three hundred feet high, the " Son" still growing ; the 
"Siamese Twins" and their " Guardian," the "Old 
Maid," the " Bride of California," " Beauty of the 
Forest," " Uncle Tom's Cabin," etc. This latter has a 
hollow at the bottom of its trunk large enough to seat 
an audience of twenty-five persons. Another of these 
conifers hollowed out into a deep cavern has been 
named " The Riding-School," because a man on horse- 
back can penetrate a distance of twenty yards into the 
dark cavern of its prostrate form. There is another 
cluster which is fancifully known as the " Family 
Group," comprising twenty-six trees, among which are 
seen the father and mother and twenty-four children. 
But the poor old " father " fell some years ago, his 
body measuring at the base one hundred and ten feet 
in circumference. When in his prime this venerable 
tree was supposed to be from four hundred and 
fifty to five hundred feet in height. The " mother " 
was three hundred feet high and ninety-one feet in 
circumference ; the " children " were not so large. 

Since Mr. Lobb's time other groups of these giants 
have been discovered in regions quite remote from 
the first named. They have been found on the top 
and sides of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at an ele- 
vation of 6,000 to 7,000 feet. Tn some clusters there 



240 FA OT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

are from 350 to 1,200 trees of all sizes. What their 
fate may be is scarcely problematical, for within the 
last few years a colony numbering six hundred mem- 
bers with the Bellamy idea as its leading attraction 
lias located a large amount of land in this region and 
constructed a roadway to the timber belt. The in- 
tention is to turn into gold this most wonderful and 
perfect body of sequoias gigantea in the world. 

But Australian forests have also their mammoth 
trees. Dr. Ferdinand Miller, government botanist of 
Yictoria, Australia, discovered in that colony a forest 
of eucalypti, a species of gum-tree, some of which 
surpass somewhat in height the famous "big trees" 
of California. 

After giving at some length the account of the 
journey and of the scenery of the district in which 
the giants were found the writer mentions a few par- 
ticulars, by the aid of which some better idea may be 
formed of their height and size. They are taller than 
the trees of California, though not so large in girth, 
and have more slender and graceful stems. One of 
these trees, which had fallen, measured two hundred 
and ninety-five feet to the first branch, and seventy 
feet more to the point at which it had been broken 
off in its fall, and where its diameter was still one yard. 
One was found which had a circumference of eighty- 
one feet at its base, and towered upward to a height 
of five hundred feet. This extraordinary tree would 
have overshadowed Egypt's greatest pyramid. To 
afford a more vivid conception of its magnitude Dr. 
Miller made the estimate that one half of the wood 
which this forest mammoth would yield sawn into 
one-inch boards a foot w T ide would afford 420,720 run- 



WORLD WONDERS— TREES. 241 

ning feet. If the same parts were cut into railroad- 
ties six feet long, and of the usual thickness, it would 
yield 17,780 of them, or sufficient numbers to lay a 
railway-track ten miles long ; they would freight a 
vessel of a thousand tons burden. The oil obtained 
from its resinous leaves might be set down at thirty- 
one hogsheads, the charcoal from its wood at 
eighteen thousand bushels, the pyroligneous acid at 
two hundred and thirty thousand gallons, the tar at 
two hundred and thirty barrels, and the potash at 
three tons ! 

Trees of some species are short-lived, but others 
live four and five hundred years. A lime-tree was 
planted at Freyburg on the day of the celebrated bat- 
tle, and stands yet. This event occurred in 1476. The 
venerated tree is encircled by a colonnade, to protect it 
from the curiosity-hunters. In 1884 the author stood 
under the shadow of an historic tree, the grand old 
cypress, hung with mosses and fire-scorched, well 
known to travelers in Mexico as the Arhol de la 
Noche Triste, or " Tree of the Sad Mght," under 
which Cortez is said to have passed the night of July 
1, 1520, where he wept over his misfortunes after 
the defeat of his forces by the army of Montezuma. 
That was three hundred and sixty years ago, and the 
tree must have been very old then. What is to be 
the fate of these forest mammoths ? Doubtless before 
the march of civilization they will disappear in a few 
years ; the cupidity of man can hardly resist the 
temptations they present ; railroad-ties and lumber 
are valuable ; the tree therefore means money. The 
famous pyramids of Egypt were stripped of their red 

granite casing ages ago to furnish material for other 
16 



242 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL T WRIT. 

buildings. Stonehenge, the most remarkable antiquity 
of England, has almost been destroyed by the people 
that live near it, who have used its material for cow- 
sheds and pig-sties. In like manner the giant coni- 
fers of California and the eucalypti of Australia will 
pass from human sight. Somebody may be wise enough 
to preserve a few specimens, either in California or 
Australia, for the sake of those who are to come 
after us, but the probabilities lie on the other side.* 

Then let us project ourselves down over the ages 
a few thousand years, and if one should stumble upon 
an old book in some very ancient library telling the 
world of these enormous trees the story would be 
looked upon as a myth and entirely unbelievable ; 
they would treat it precisely as some now treat the 
Bible. It does require faith to accept much that is 
written in the Bible ; and does it not require faith to 
accept much that is written in the book of nature 
well as in the life of man ? 

The account given in the book of Numbers con- 
cerning the grapes of Eshcol have no doubt raised in 
many a mind a query ; and yet there is nothing to 
justify a doubt. We are told that when the spies 
were sent forth to view the promised land most of 
them were terror-stricken at the giant race which they 
must meet in entering upon their inheritance ; but, on 
the other hand, they were delighted with the fruits of 
the land. On their arrival at the valley of Eshcol 

* The Secretary of the Interior has requested the Secretary of War 
to station a company of cavalry in the Sequoia National Park and 
another in the Yosemite Park to prevent depredations on the mam- 
moth tree groves. It is said the so-called Bellamy colonists, who 
have in part a perfected title to the land on which these trees stand, 
have expressed a purpose to hold their claims in spite of opposition. 



WORLD WONDERS— TREES. 243 

they cut down a branch with a cluster of grapes and 
bore it " between two on a staff." This, like some 
other things, has been regarded by some as an over- 
drawing of facts, as if they were so filled with 
thoughts of giants that even the clusters of grapes 
were gigantic also. Who ever heard of a cluster of 
grapes growing to such a size ? The fact is, they 
bore it in this way in part because it was so large, and 
for convenience' sake in transporting it, in order that 
the fruit might not be bruised. In the far East, where 
the grape is indigenous, vines have often been known 
to attain a diameter of a foot and a half. Strabo, as 
quoted by Dr. Smith, states that it is on record " that 
there are vines in Margiana (Persia) whose stems are 
such as would require two men to span around, and 
whose clusters are two cubits long." Travelers in the 
Orient tell us to-day of single clusters which often 
weigh ten or twelve pounds. 

I must be content with quoting the following ex- 
tract from Dr. Kitto, which is strikingly illustrative of 
the manner in which the spies carried that remarkable 
cluster from Eshcol : " Even in our own country a 
bunch of grapes was produced at Welbeck and sent as 
a present from the Duke of Rutland to the Marquis 
of Rockingham which weighed nineteen pounds. It 
was conveyed to its destination, more than twenty 
miles distant, on a staff by four laborers, two of whom 
bore it in rotation. The greatest diameter of this 
cluster was nineteen and a half inches, its length 
twenty-three inches." 

But let us go back into the records of past ages. 
There was the enormous vegetation of the coal period, 
which has left its impressions upon the rocks, as seen 



244 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

in our coal-mines. The vegetation of that age was 
peculiar ; it grew for a purpose, and must have differed 
widely from any thing that grows upon the earth 
at present ; it was a coal-producing vegetation, entirely 
unlike the vegetable growths of to-day. 

The varieties were few, and are known to us now 
as tree-ferns, rushes, club-mosses, etc., whose size 
was very great. Ferns then reached the proportion 
of stately trees, fifty or sixty feet high, with trunks 
from one to two feet in diameter; the ferns surely had 
giant ancestors, whether we had or not. There was 
a species of vegetation which we call now by the name 
of Calamite, a jointed plant something like the rush ; 
but instead of being a foot or two in height it rose 
to an altitude of twenty or thirty feet. Its fossil 
stems are found in the coal-seams. Then there was 
the Sigittaria, so-called from the seal-marks upon its 
vertical ribs. Its leaves wound spirally around its 
stem or trunk in the most graceful and beautiful or- 
der. Trunks of this species of tree frequently occur 
standing erect or lying prostrate in the coal-mines, 
and sometimes with their roots imbedded in the soil 
where they grew, beneath the coal of which they form 
a part, and when the miner cuts them off below their 
tapering form permits the whole mass to drop out, by 
which many a poor fellow has lost his life. Club- 
mosses then grew to a height of sixty feet. Cone-bear- 
ing trees of great size flourished in that age. It is truly 
wonderful that we should be able to trace these crea- 
tions of an almost infinitely remote past ; to be able 
to exhume their fossils from the earth, and to find even 
the leaf, stem, twigs, of trees and shrubs that flourished 
thousands upon thousands of years before man was 



WORLD WONDERS— TREES. 245 

created. The earth in those far-off ages must have pre- 
sented a singular sight ; the forests and jangles were 
so dense that the sunlight must have been in a great 
degree shut out. The air was heavy with carbonic 
acid gas, and such animals only as needed but little 
oxygen inhabited the waters of these primeval seas 
or roamed through the dense thickets which then cov- 
ered the earth. 

" The amount of vegetable matter in a single coal- 
seam six inches thick is greater than the most luxu- 
riant vegetation of the present day could furnish in 
twelve hundred years. Boussingault calculates that 
luxuriant vegetation at the present day takes from 
the atmosphere about half a ton of carbon per acre 
annually, or fifty tons an acre per century. Fifty 
tons of stove-coal spread evenly over an acre of sur- 
face could make a layer of less than one third of an 
inch. But suppose it to be half an inch, then the time 
required for the accumulation of a seam of coal three 
feet thick — the thinnest that can be worked to advan- 
tage — would be 7,260 years. If the aggregate thick- 
ness of the seams of coal in any basin amounts to 
sixty feet the time required for its accumulation 
would be 144,000 years. In the coal-measures of 
Nova Scotia are seventv-six seams of coal, of which 
one is twenty-two feet thick and another thirty-seven 
feet thick." Imagine the time required for the de- 
posit. 

We speak of these great deposits and great epochs 
as if it meant only business. But there is beauty as 
well as utility. Dr. Buckland says of the interior 
lining of a coal-mine : ' The most elaborate imita- 
tions of living foliage upon the painted ceilings of 



246 FA OT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

Italian palaces bear no comparison with the beauteous 
profusion with which the galleries of these instructive 
coal-mines are overhung. The roof is covered with a 
canopy of gorgeous* tapestry enriched with festoons 
of most graceful foliage, flung in wild, irregular pro- 
fusion over every portion of its surface. The effect 
is heightened by the contrast of the coal-black color 
of these vegetables with the light groundwork of 
rock to which they are attached. The spectator feels 
himself transported as if by enchantment into the 
forests of another world ; he beholds trees, of forms 
and characters now unknown upon the surface of the 
earth, presented to his senses almost in the beauty of 
their primeval life." 



WORLD WONDERS—ANIMALS. 24] 



CHAPTER XIX. 

WORLD WONDERS— ANIMALS. 

¥E have elsewhere in this book spoken of the fan- 
ciful idea of a French writer who in a learned 
volume attributed to the progenitor of our race 
such an enormous stature. It is really ludicrous to 
read the story of the "giants" as related by some of 
the savants of a century or two ago. By them we are 
told of that puissant lord, the Chevalier Rincon, whose 
remains were discovered at Rouen in 1509, whose skull 
was reported to " hold a bushel of wheat ; " whose 
shin-bone was " four feet long," and others in propor- 
tion. The skeleton of a hero was also reported to have 
been found at Valence, France, in 1705, which was 
" twenty-two feet long ; " and still others were calcu- 
lated to have belonged to " giants thirty-six feet high ; " 
and even greater wonders than these were the theme 
of pen and speech. Bones were dug up out of the 
earth unlike any belonging to the human species, and 
as men knew nothing of geology, paleontology, and 
comparative anatomy they were supposed to have 
been those of a race of human beings of enormous 
proportions, in whose veritable existence the world 
had generally believed. But how fanciful ! 

Sir Hans Sloane was one of the first to express an 
opinion that these so-called " bones of the giants " were 
not human remains at all, but animal. This announce- 
ment was at the time considered the rankest of heresy, 



248 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

and the philosopher was asked if he would dare to 
contradict the sacred Scriptures, in which it was said, 
" There were giants in those days." In time the cel- 
ebrated Cuvier came to the front and fully proved 
that these bones were in reality the fossil remains of 
enormous animals which had become extinct. Great 
teeth had been discovered imbedded in the earth, 
some of which weighed from a dozen to nearly twenty 
pounds. These teeth were on exhibition in the mu- 
seums, and were regarded as having belonged to these 
giant men of the past ; but they, too, were shown 
by the learned naturalist to have been the molars of 
these same animals, or to have belonged to spermaceti 
whales. 

If w^e uncover the earth under our feet in almost 
any section of the globe we come upon the remains 
of beings that formerly lived and sported on the land 
or in the seas. They were entirely unlike the present 
races of the animal kingdom, particularly in the mat- 
ter of size and possible ferocity. Were they to re- 
appear they would be regarded as a race of hideous 
monsters, the terror of every living being of to-day, 
whether man or beast ; but in their own age they 
were as natural as are the animals of the earth at the 
present. And, furthermore, were it not for the fact 
that their remains are found in the strata of the older 
geological periods it would be difficult to believe that 
such monstrous beasts ever walked the earth or swam 
in the seas. But natural history has proven beyond 
any question that our earth was once the arena where 
these giant animals fought their battles, propagated 
their species, lived and died. The pre-adamite world 
w r as a fact as surely as the post-adamite. The former 



WORLD WONDERS— ANIMALS. 249 

was one in which huge fantastic creatures of amaz- 
ing magnitude and shape played their part. 

The fossil remains and rocky impressions of these 
beings have been brought to light in so many places 
all over the world that their existence is no longer 
called in question. They have been found in complete 
form just as they lived ages ago, and often in nat- 
ural positions when they were suddenly overtaken 
by some awful convulsion of nature, or in parts ; a 
single bone has been found from which the whole an- 
imal has been reproduced in appearance, both as to 
size and shape. The skillful comparative anatomist is 
able even to decide upon the habits of these ancient 
denizens of sea and land. 

It must be remembered that the laws of nature pro- 
ceed with so much uniformity, and the types of the 
animal races have been so persistent, that the expert 
naturalist has not found it a very difficult task to re- 
produce these ancient organisms. In proof of this 
instances are on record quite numerous in which after 
the reproduction of some extinct animal from a bone 
or two, using artificial material, and following the 
well-known laws of animal life or existence, the geol- 
ogist has discovered somewhere in the strata the en- 
tire fossil of such an animal, which has been found to 
correspond almost exactly with the reproduction of 
the anatomist. 

A good illustration of this is seen in the well-known 
case of the great Megalosaur by Dr. B. Waterhouse 
Hawkins, who enriched the Crystal Palace at Syden- 
ham, England, a few years ago, by filling one of the 
large sections of that building with reproductions in 
both form and size of the organic remains of the pre- 



250 FA CT AND FICTION IN IIOL Y WRIT. 

adamite world which have been discovered by geol- 
ogists. It was one of the most interesting as well as 
the most instructive sections at the exhibition. The 
dimensions of some of them may be seen in the 
fact that certain of these models contain thirty tons 
of clay, which had to be supported on four legs, as 
their natural history characteristics would not allow 
of recourse being had to any of the expedients for 
support allowed to sculptors in ordinary cases. 

The best work in this field of science was done by 
Professor Hawkins, whose long acquaintance with 
recent forms of the animal kingdom enabled him to 
adapt to the extinct species which he has restored 
all of their natural habits. Perhaps the greatest 
one of these old-time monsters was the Igaanodon, a 
variety of the Dinosaur, which was not much less than 
the building of a house upon four columns. The quan- 
tity of material of which the standing iguanodon is 
composed consisted of four iron columns nine feet long 
and seven inches in diameter, six hundred bricks, six 
hundred and fifty five-inch, half-round drain tiles, nine 
hundred plain tiles, thirty-eight casks of cement, in all 
about six hundred and forty bushels of broken stone 
and other material. These, with a quantity of iron hoop- 
ing and inch bar-iron, which constituted the bones, sin- 
ews, and muscles of this large model, the restored form 
stood before the world — a picture of an age which 
taxes the wildest imagination. 

If this description does not give the reader an ac- 
curate idea of an old time "pet " it may be further 
stated that a party of twenty-one scientific gentlemen, 
at the invitation of Mr. Hawkins, on one occasion took 
dinner within the restored form of this animal. The 



WORLD WONDERS— ANIMALS. 251 

iguanodon was herbivorous, living on the branches of 
the cypress-tree, which have been found fossil in its 
stomach. 

But this is not all. There was the Megalosaur, a 
flesh-eating animal, whose teeth curved backward like 
pruning-knives, and with a double edge of enamel so 
as to cut like a sharp saber equally on each side. 
There was an animal which scientists have named the 
Ichthyosaur, a combination of fish and lizard, as the 
name imports. It w r as never seen by the eye of man, 
for it existed long before he came upon the scene. 
But how do we know that there ever were such 
beings on the earth ? By the fossils that have been 
exhumed out of the earth's deep beds, and by the im- 
pressions they have made on the rocks. This last- 
named animal had the general shape of the dolphin, 
the snout of a porpoise, the head of a lizard, the jaws 
and teeth of a crocodile, the vertebrse of a fish, and 
the paddles of a whale. It lived in the waters, but 
breathed the air like the whale. Its neck was short 
and thick, its head was large, and its body at times 
attained a length of thirty to forty feet. Its jaws 
had an enormous opening, some having been found 
which contained one hundred and sixty teeth. The 
eyes were often two feet in diameter, and were so 
constructed that they could be used either as tele- 
scopes or microscopes, thus enabling the monster to 
see its prey near or far, and even in the darkness of 
the night. Verily there have been some things even 
in this world that lie out a good way beyond our 
ordinary experience. There was the so-called Plesi- 
osaur, which had the head of a lizard, the teeth of a 
crocodile, a swan-shaped neck of enormous length 



252 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

and size, the trunk of a quadruped, the ribs of a 
chameleon. Each pair of ribs surrounded the body 
with a complete girdle formed of five pieces, thus 
affording great facility for the expansion and dilation 
of the lungs. The finding of one of these fossils is 
thus related by Professor J. Dorman Steele : " In 
1811 Mary Aiming, of Lyme Regis, England, a poor 
country girl who made her precarious living by pick- 
ing up fossils, for which the neighborhood was famous, 
was pursuing her vocation, hammer in hand, when she 
perceived some bones projecting a little out of the 
cliff. Finding on examination that it was part of a 
large skeleton, she cleared away the rubbish and 
found the whole creature imbedded in the block of 
stone. She hired workmen to dig at the block of lias 
in which it was buried. In this manner was the first 
of these monsters brought to light — a monster thirty 
feet long, with jaws nearly a fathom in length, and 
huge saucer-shaped eyes, which have since been found 
so perfect that the petrified lenses have been split off 
and used as magnifiers." 

The Pterodactyl was even more of a monster 
than the last named ; it was, in fact, a huge bat, witli 
hollow bones, and without feathers, and was armed 
with a mouth full of glittering teeth. When of full 
size this monster bat had wings which extended some- 
times more than sixteen feet from tip to tip. It could 
walk upright with folded wings, perch upon the 
trees, or climb the ragged cliffs with its hooked claws, 
holding itself in readiness to descend upon its prey. 
This was a species of flying dragon, and may have 
given rise to that monster of the ancient belief which 
was pictured as having breath of fire, poisoning the 



WORLD WONDERS— ANIMALS. 253 

air with its exhalations and disputing with man the 
possession of the earth itself. 

Over the earth there roamed in great herds such 
monster beasts as we now know only by the names 
given to them by the naturalists. There was, for 
instance, the Mammoth, sometimes spoken of as a 
" fossil elephant," which was a third larger than the 
largest of that species of modern times whose w T ell- 
preserved remains are found in the ice-banks of Si- 
beria and other extreme northern regions, and whose 
teeth and tusks have formed much of the ivory used 
both in Europe and America. 

The Mastodon was even larger and more massive 
than the mammoth, and existed on both continents. 
A single tooth of this beast has been known to weigh 
nearly twenty pounds. Ivory tusks have been found 
measuring fourteen feet in length and weighing; sev- 
eral hundred pounds. A skeleton of one of these 
animals was accidentally found by a farmer in a bog in 
New Jersey a few years ago. In the place of his 
stomach there were seven bushels of vegetable matter 
which was ascertained to be cypress twigs, which 
doubtless constituted its last supper. It must have 
ventured into some marsh for a drink of water, where 
it became entangled, and on account of its great weight 
sank in the mire, where it had lain for ages. 

But perhaps the greatest of all the distinctively land 
animals of ancient times was the Megatherium (the 
word means monstrous beast) ; this was one of the most 
clumsy and ill-shapen of all the extinct species yet ex- 
humed. Its fore feet were each about one yard long 
and a foot broad, and were furnished with gigantic 
claws. The pelvis of this monster is one of the most 



254 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

massive bony structures that tlie world ever saw. And 
yet it is not so much the size as the strength of this 
Old World creature that is indicated by those colossal 
bones. It lived upon vegetables, and so great was its 
power that it could pull up large trees by their roots 
for the purpose of feeding upon the upper branches. 
Having with its vast claws broken the ground around 
the root of a tree, it would rise upon its haunches, 
and, using its tail, which was two or three feet in 
circumference, as a third leg or prop, it would take 
the tree in its powerful grasp, rocking it to and fro 
to loosen its roots, and would then gather up all its 
strength and lift it from the ground. Such, at least, 
is the supposition made by scientists from its peculiar 
form and solidity of the bony structure. 

Since these creatures have passed away from the 
pampas of South America the world has seen nothing 
to equal them in pure physical power among animals. 
Then there was the Glyptodon, a mammal encased in 
a shell like a turtle, which was a dozen feet long, 
and must often have weighed half a ton. Were it 
living now and roaming about our fields and forests 
it would be rather a fearful object to meet either by 
day or night. 

There is certainly no room for skepticism along these 
lines; that such huge quadrupeds, serpents, and sau- 
rians did live all intelligent readers of science know. 

Directly under the waving prairie fields of Kansas, 
where all is now thrift and beauty, once swept the 
waters of an old cretaceous ocean. To-day are found 
in excavations made by man, or through the agency 
of great floods, animal remains of startling magnitude. 
Among them was discovered but recently the entire 



WORLD WONDERS— ANIMALS. 255 

vertebral column, over thirty feet in length, of the 
Or?iit/iorhynchus, and the bones of a paddle of a giant 
turtle or tortoise, which must have been at least eight- 
een feet long. 

The richest find of all in Kansas, however, was 
made in a ravine which had been filled by a very heavy 
rain to overflowing. The water, passing off, washed 
away the loose earth and sediment of limestone on the 
sides, thus revealing almost an entire skeleton of a 
creature known as the Liodon Dysjjelor, the longest of 
the antediluvian reptiles, and the head of the Portlieus 
Molossus, a shark-like fish of formidable power. The 
dyspelor measured nearly sixty feet in length from 
the tip of his nose to the end of the long serpent-like 
tail, and the head of the molossus was some inches 
longer than that of a full-grown grizzly bear, and 
much broader and heavier. 

To add to the interest of the discovery, it could be 
easily seen that the gigantic monsters had died in 
combat, for the great jaws of the molossus, with their 
terrible cylindric fangs, were closed in a death-grip 
on the hind leg of the dyspelor, crushing it between 
them, while from the position of the other giant it 
could plainly be seen that it had used its flexible 
though massive tail in beating to death its foe, which 
with bull-dog tenacity had still retained its hold. The 
capacious mouth of the dyspelor, with its glistening 
teeth, was wide open, the head thrown nearly back on 
the vertebrae, and the whole carcass was convulsed into 
a half coil. At that moment some great wave of 
power must have come suddenly upon them, cover- 
ing them up in their tomb, to lie unseen and unknown 
until in after ages they should be brought to light to 



256 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

show man what had been on this earth in the ages of 
the past. 

Those who have so much to say, when speaking of 
the JBible, about not believing things which do not 
accord with modern experience and observation 
would do well to examine the government collection 
of fossil remains recently found in the so-called " Bad 
Lands" of Wyoming, a region once densely popu- 
lated with beasts, birds, and reptiles beside which our 
largest modern species would be mere pygmies. Who 
of Adam's race ever saw reptiles one hundred feet 
long and of corresponding bulk? flying dragons with 
twenty-five feet spread of wings ? great birds with 
rows of oditterinfi: teeth? mammals three times the 
size of our largest elephants? sharks as enormous as 
whales? fish clad in mighty plates of armor? Who 
ever saw saurians such as have been exhumed in 
these regions, sixty feet long, and that stood fifteen 
feet high, and must have weighed twenty tons ? Im- 
agine — for that is all we can do — that wonderful reptil- 
ian monster named by paleontologists the Triceratop, 
whose neck measured six feet across the back, intended 
for the attachment of great muscles for holding up the 
huge head — an animal covered with plates of armor, 
and from whose head projected great horns, or that 
other species called the Atlantosaur, the bulkiest ani- 
mal possibly that ever walked the earth. It attained 
a length of one hundred feet at times. Its thigh-bones 
have been found measuring eight feet in length and 
two feet in diameter. If man had lived in the age 
when these beasts were on the earth his experience 
would have differed from ours surely. Then he 
would also have seen great swimming lizards eighty 



WORLD WONDERS— ANIMALS. 257 

feet long, turtles twenty feet long and seven or 
eight feet high, and many other living forms in which 
it taxes one's credulity to believe. Bat believe in 
them we do, for there are the remains, dug out of 
the earth like coal or limestone, and placed in muse- 
ums for the inspection of mankind. 

It is well known that the great cities of London 
and Paris both occupy positions directly above what 
were once great centers of animal life ; both cities 
are built over the tombs of extinct species. What 
life, activity, business, pleasure, there are in these 
marts! what death below them! The buildings of 
Paris, that gay, beautiful, wealthy city, are constructed 
of stone made up largely of animal forms. There was 
a species of whale which once existed in the seas 
known to us as the Zeuglodon, so called from the 
yoke-shape of its fossil teeth. The seas in which it 
swam have passed away ; the animals are gone ; but 
they have left their bones in the earth which formed 
the old sea-bottom. In places in our own South their 
vertebrae are so numerous that the farmers have 
plowed them out and laid them up in fences or 
burned them for their lime. A single vertebra is so 
heavy as to tax the strength of a man to lift it. These 
animals existed before man came upon the stage. 
Indeed, they were agents sent of God to do their 
part in fitting up this world-residence for man. Like 
the coral and thousands of other microscopic creatures, 
they played their part. To them even we are in- 
debted for many things we enjoy. The great Father 
sent them as our forerunners, and we are in our way 
only completing the work they began. Let us sup- 
pose now that some slab or series of slabs had been 
17 



258 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

discovered in one of the deserted temples of Central 
America, on which in strange hieroglyphics had been 
recorded this story of these Old World monsters, or 
that some dusty volume in some old library had been 
found somewhere in the world describing these 
giant creatures ; how ready some of us would be to 
cry out, " Impossible ! " How many would call the 
story mythical, and say that no such beings ever 
walked the earth, for it is not according to our ex- 
perience and observation ! 



STRUGGLES WITH UNBELIEF. 2d 9 



CHAPTER XX. 

STRUGGLES WITH UNBELIEF. 

IT seems to be a law of the universe that every 
thing which lives must in some sense battle for its 
existence. Life itself is a series of contests, which 
begin in our infancy and only terminate when the 
heart ceases to beat. The tendency in all tilings is 
toward change and decay ; out of these come all true 
progress. The mental and moral world are as full of 
struggles as the physical. The highest life we may 
live is the life of faith, which means that there are 
some things that lie beyond our comprehension, and 
so must be taken on trust. 

" The steps of faith fall on the seeming void, 
But find a rock beneath." 

Nothing is gained in this world without a struggle. 
The law holds good every- where, in every department 
of life ; even our faith must be tried, " that the trial 
of your faith might be much more precious than 
gold." He who never doubts never inquires, and he 
who never asks questions never learns. An active 
mental life is a chain of interrogation-points. Let it 
be our motto to reverently approach the gate of the 
temple of knowledge and ask admittance. " Her ways 
are ways of pleasantness." 

We have kept steadily in mind all along the fact of 
the two books which God has written for our instruc- 



260 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

tion — Nature and Scripture. The rocky tables of the 
one and the flexible pages of the other have been 
traced all over with the finger-marks of divinity. 
In both are wonderful chronicles, in both are some 
mysterious records too profound for our thought. 
Who understands fully the earth ? Who can possibly 
find out God or know the infinite ? If the Bible is not 
an inspired book, then it has deceived the world, and 
out of this deception have come the best society, the 
best books, the best schools, and the best of every 
thing. The claim is frequently made that the light 
of nature is all-sufficient, and some men boastfully 
declare that they need nothing more. But Nature 
is not able to teach us spiritual truths. Nature is 
sometimes misunderstood, or at least we do not fully 
take in her meaning. The mirage is a natural phe- 
nomenon that has lured many a traveler to his death 
amid the burning sands of an African desert. The 
earth seems to be a plane, but it is not. To the sense 
of sight the heavens are a dome over us, in which the 
stars are set as " jewels in the crown of night." The 
horizon is a circle which bounds our vision, and where 
the sky seems to drop down upon the land or the sea, 
actually inclosing a given area of the earth's plane. 
The sun and moon seem to be flying in a westward 
course over our heads, whereas we are only moving 
eastward. We " walk by faith and not by sight ;" so, 
too, we read by faith and not by sight always. For 
any one in this materialistic age to affirm his belief 
in the whole Bible is to run the risk of being called 
very credulous by some people, to say the least, if 
not to incur the positive ridicule of many ; while to 
declare one's entire belief in the teachings of science, 



STRUGGLES WITH UXBELIEF. 261 

with all its marvels, is to win the respect of the 
world. 

" Faith in the supernatural supplies the grandest 
inspiration, alike in respect to action and endurance, 
that the human mind can receive. It gives hope to 
the soul and scatters clouds that would otherwise 
darken its sky. Can that be essentially false which 
is productive of the best results ? Is it to be supposed 
that a pure illusion is practically better than the 
truth ? Let those answer these questions who treat 
the supernatural as a falsehood and a sham." 

Science has in it some things as incomprehensible 
and as mysterious as any thing contained in the Script- 
ures ; indeed, the teachings of the Bible do not make 
as much of a draft on our credence as many things 
that are known to be true in the natural world about 
us. The story of Jonah, and especially that part of 
it which relates to his experience in the belly of a 
" great fish," more than any thing in the Bible, seems 
too mythical. Even some very eminent Bible scholars 
have not agreed concerning it. Some have called it a 
fiction, others an allegory, still others a legend or fa- 
ble, and have accepted it as merely a method employed 
to teach certain things. The account is before us and 
constitutes a portion of the Scriptures, and so has a 
claim upon our consideration. Let it be remembered 
that Jonah is not a modern discovery. The incom- 
prehensibility of the miracle by which he was arrested 
and brought to duty has provoked mockery and jest 
from the very earliest times, and there is a sense in 
which the narrative has been a stumbling-block to 
many for ages. 

It is allowable in biblical as well as in all other 



262 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

studies to let reason guide us as far as it can; but 
every one must admit that there are some things 
which lie beyond the boundary of human reason. 
This is true in the material world ; why not in the 
wider, deeper, spiritual realm ? The Bible instructs 
us in moral duties by plain speech, by metaphor, al- 
legory, parable, poem, and history. When we read it 
let us not forget that here as elsewhere in secular 
literature words are but " signs of ideas ; " and so 
these statements, whether in one form of speech or 
another, have a meaning. The question should be, 
What do they mean ? Furthermore, in God's dealings 
with mankind he has invariably employed natural 
agencies and processes as far as possible. It is not, 
therefore, to be supposed that when he said to Noah, 
" I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for 
a token of a covenant between me and the earth," * 
that the rainbow was then and there created, and 
for that purpose alone. The beautiful bow that spans 
the dark cloud is caused by the sun-ray falling on 
descending drops of water, and by refraction and 
reflection presents to the eye of the beholder this 
charming celestial phenomenon. But now for the 
first time it was made use of for a " sign." When we 
have gone to the extent of reason faith comes to our 
aid and we are able to reach out further and know 
more. 

Jonah was one of the oldest of the prophets. He 
lived when Nineveh was in the very zenith of its 
power, the greatest city in the world. This prophet 
was commanded to go to Nineveh and warn all the 
people, from the king down, to turn from their iniqui- 

* Gen. ix, 13. 



STRUGGLES WITH UNBELIEF. 263 

ties, either political sins or individual sins, possibly 
both. He seems to have had a dread of being consid- 
ered a false prophet in case mercy should be shown 
to the city. Bat he finally reached the place, deliv- 
ered his message, a fast was appointed, the people 
repented, and the city was not overthrown. 

Here is a field for the doubter and the unbeliever. 
He declares that he cannot accept all this as true. 
Well, is it not a fact that until quite recent times 
even the story of Nineveh and Babylon were consid- 
ered by many to be mythical ? But the confirmations 
of the historical accuracy are increasing every year. 
It is within the memory of men still living that skep- 
tics have asked, " Where is Nineveh ? Where is 
Babylon ? These places never existed." People 
laughed at the story of these cities as they did at that 
of ancient Troy. 

Sennacherib, Shalmaneser, Tiglath-pileser, were as 
mythical as Agamemnon, Hector, and Achilles ; but 
Bawlinson, Layard, and Schliemann have unearthed 
these buried cities, and lo ! the Scriptures are con- 
firmed minutely. All men who have given this 
question careful and impartial thought have come to 
regard the Scriptures as containing authentic history 
of Nineveh and Babvlon. But what is it that the 
skeptic disbelieves in this account of Jonah ? The 
story of the fish. Let us examine it, therefore. 

After the command of God the prophet failed to 
" obey marching orders." He went to Joppa to 
escape duty, and took passage in a ship for Tarshish, 
thus refusing to work in the field to which he had 
been appointed. Then a great storm arose. The 
sailors called upon their gods, but no deliverance 



264 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

came. They remembered the poor traveler in the 
ship's hold asleep. They roused him from his stupor 
with the question, u What meanest thou, sleeper ? 
arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will 
think upon us, that we perish not. 3 ' * Then, as was cus- 
tomary in snch extremities, they cast lots for the pur- 
pose of discovering who was the provoking cause of 
this storm. The renegade prophet confessed his na- 
tionality and his flight, and bade them cast him into 
the sea. Let it be said to the credit of these heathen 
sailors that they did all in their power to save the life 
of this passenger who had paid his fare and committed 
himself to their keeping. But the storm continued to 
rage and the ship was in peril with every one on it, 
and, as a last resort, Jonah was heaved overboard into 
the angry waters, and immediately the waves ceased 
their furious raging, and these sailors acknowledged 
the sovereignty of God. 

Now the narrative informs us that a " great fish " 
swallowed the prophet Jonah. So far as that may be 
concerned there was nothing in the least degree mi- 
raculous, for many a man has fallen into the sea 
and been devoured by some ferocious sea-monster. 
If we were to read in the newspaper any day that 
a man had fallen overboard into the sea or had been 
thrown overboard by the crew and a huge shark had 
devoured him, it is not at all likely that any one would 
throw down the paper and refuse to believe it. But 
it is written : " Now the Lord had prepared a great 
fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the 
belly of the fish three days and three nights," f and 
Jonah was ejected from the fish's stomach. The 

* Jonah i, 6. f Jonah i, 17. 



STRUGGLES WITH UNBELIEF. 265 

story of the overthrow is easily credited, but the pres- 
ervation of life under such anomalous circum- 
stances, together with the ejectment, are the points 
at which some people demur. This whole account 
comes under the head of miracles, and if these have 
been wrought under any circumstances, then this 
narration is certainly not difficult to believe. There 
have been so many strange occurrences in the history 
of the world that it behooves one to be cautious in 
rejecting statements which involve the marvelous, the 
mysterious, the miraculous. But all strange things 
are not miracles, let us remember. It may be interest- 
ing to note a few occurrences that reveal to us the 
inexplicable. 

Many years ago a gentleman accidentally dropped his 
gold watch into the Atlantic Ocean when the vessel 
was ofi the banks of Newfoundland. It was a valua- 
ble watch, engraved with his name and residence. 
As it fell into the ocean it was lost forever, seemingly. 
But in the course of a year it was sent to him, no 
longer a valuable time-keeper, to be sure, but as a 
mere curiosity. As the watch descended through the 
waters of the sea it was caught and swallowed bv a 
cod-fish ; the fish was also caught afterward, as myr- 
iads are every year, and in its maw was found the 
watch. There was nothing miraculous in all this ; it 
was simply a curious circumstance, and any one can 
see that it was entirely within the realm of the possi- 
ble. Such a thing, however, would not take place 
once in millions of times under similar circumstances. 
An instance somewhat like this occurred in England 
a few years ago when a gentleman dropped a finger- 
ring into the river Tyne while leaning over a bridge, 



266 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

gazing into the water. In a few days his servant 
brought the ring to him and laid it 6n his table. On 
being asked by her master where she had obtained it 
she replied, " Indeed, was it not in the stomach of the 
fish which yourself bought in the market to-day ? " 

A remarkable instance was that of the book dis- 
covered in the stomach of a fish in England. On the 
23d of June, 1626, a cod-fish was brought to Cam- 
bridge market which upon being opened was found 
to contain a book in its maw or stomach. The book 
was much soiled and covered with slime, though it 
had been wrapped in a piece of sail-cloth. It was a 
duodecimo w^ork, written by one John Frith, com- 
prising several treatises on religious subjects. In a 
letter now in the British Museum, written by Mr. 
Mead, of Christ Church College, to Sir M. Stuteville, 
the writer says that he had " seen with his own eyes 
the fish, the maw, the piece of sail-cloth, and the 
book." The treatises contained in the book were 
written by Mr. Frith when in prison. Strange to 
say, he had been long confined in a fish-cellar at Ox- 
ford, where many of his fellow-prisoners died from 
the impure exhalation of unsound fish. He was 
removed from thence to the Tower, and in 1533 was 
burned at the stake for his adherence to the reformed 
religion. The authorities at Cambridge reprinted 
the w T oik, which had been completely forgotten till it 
turned up in this strange manner. The reprint is 
entitled Vox Piscis^ and was adorned with a wood- 
cut representing the stall at Cambridge market, with 
the fish, book, and knife. 

One of the most singular circumstances of modern 
times was that in which a newly married couple were 



STRUGGLES WITH UNBELIEF. 267 

journeying eastward from Chicago, over one of the 
leading railroad lines half a dozen years a^o, and in 
the toilet-room in the morning the lady let slip from 
her finger into the basin a valuable diamond ring, 
given to her on the occasion of her betrothal. The train 
swept on, and the lady mourned her lost ring. But a 
year or two afterward a fish-monger in Toledo, Ohio, 
found this ring in the stomach of a fish. It must 
have been that the ring fell off as the train was pass- 
ing over a bridge which sj)anned some stream flowing 
into Lake Erie. The fish had wandered about until 
it was caught in Lake Erie and opened in the market, 
and thus gave up its treasure. The jewel having 
been engraved with the lady's name and residence, it 
was sent to the chief of police of Chicago and through 
him returned to its owner. A one-hundred-dollar 
check from the husband was sent as a mark of appre- 
ciation to the honest fish-monger. 

These were not miracles, they were only marvels. 
But when Jesus sent his disciples to the water to 
catch a fish, in whose mouth they w r ould find money 
wherewith to pay their taxes, that was a miracle ; and 
when " God prepared " a " great fish w to swallow up 
Jonah, that too was a miracle. 

That this prophet was a real person is shown by 
the fact that he is spoken of as the son of Amittai. 
He was a prophet of God whose history can no more 
be reasonably doubted than we can doubt that such a 
man as Cyrus lived. That ^sineveh was a great city 
is equally true. These are simple historic statements ; 
both are authentic. Some years ago the French 
consul at Mosul gave an account of a three-days' feast 
observed by the inhabitants of that Moslem city in 



268 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

commemoration of the penance imposed on the people 
of the region of Nineveh by Jonah. 

He says that the fast lias been kept up from time 
immemorial in that country, and observed not only 
by the few Christians there, but by the whole Moslem 
population. Mosul itself is within sight of the ruins 
of Nineveh, and close by is a tomb traditionally as- 
signed to Jonah. It is a striking confirmation of the 
ancient Hebrew writings thus to find a fast in com- 
memoration of an important event recorded in them 
still observed almost on the very spot where it first 
began. Nineveh has been desolate for centuries ; the 
surrounding plains have become a desert. The He- 
brew people themselves have been scattered over the 
earth for twenty centuries, yet still the three-days' 
penance enforced on the population of that corrupt 
capital of the ancient world is kept by the miserable 
descendants of the old Assyrians and by the strangers 
who have intermarried with them, whether Nestorian 
or Moslem in their faith. Whoever has read Lavard's 
volumes, however, needs not to be reminded that 
Mesopotamia is still full of traditions recalling the 
scenes and customs described in the Old Testament. 
The cucumber gardens overhang the river exactly as 
they did in the days of Isaiah. The boats formed of 
skins, of which the Bible speaks, navigate to this 
hour the waters of the Tigris. But, more than all, 
the sculptures on the disinterred palaces and the 
cuneiform writing, so far as they have been deciphered, 
recall the chariots of war, the bearded kings, the 
royal insignia, the manners, the dress, nay, even the 
names, of the monarchs mentioned in the Hebrew 
Scriptures. No profane history of ages far less re- 



STRUGGLES WITH UNBELIEF. 269 

mote is confirmed in this respect by antiquarian dis- 
coveries more complete than the Bible. It is said 
than even the name of Jonali has been found in some 
of these old ruins. 

The Bible speaks of the great fish, which in our 
English translation is called a "whale;" it should be 
rendered rather by the word u sea-monster." There 
are some great fish known to naturalists which, 
according to Gregory Nazianzen, swallow their 
young when danger threatens, and vomit them forth 
again at will. We are told by Pliny and Athengeus 
that an entire man clad in armor has been found in 
the stomach of a great sea-monster. Keil tells us on 
the authority of Oken that a great fish was caught in 
the waters of Sardinia which had in its stomach an 
entire horse. Sharks have been seen and captured 
on the west coast of France with throats suf- 
ficiently capacious to admit the passage of a full- 
grown man. 

In the year 1758, when an English fleet was cruis- 
ing in the Mediterranean waters during a violent 
storm, a sailor fell overboard from one of the frigates 
and was immediately seized by a monster fish, which 
partially disappeared. The captain of the vessel 
caused a cannon, which was standing on deck, to be 
discharged at the fish, which, being struck by the 
ball, ejected the man, but slightly injured, who was then 
taken up alive into the sloop, which had come to his 
assistance, and thus was rescued. This was stated in 
the report of the admiral of the fleet to his home 
government. There are some things, as we have before 
stated, in human life that astonish us on account of 
their seeming impossibility. That God could send a 



270 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

sea-monster of some species to carry out his plans we 
certainly must admit to be a possibility. This whole 
account is circumstantial ; the details are all given 
specifically, and even the great Teacher himself refers 
to it in the following language : " For as Jonah was 
three days and three nights in the whale's belly ; so 
shall the Son of man be three days and three nights 
in the heart of the earth." * 

* Matt, xii, 40. 



WHAT IS TRUTH f 271 



CHAPTER XXI. 

WHAT IS TRUTH? 

TO doubt is not necessarily to commit a great sin ; 
if it were, then most people have sinned, for few 
have lived without doubting at some period of their 
lives; if not, it is proof that they did not think. All 
doubt is partial belief, and is sometimes only equiva- 
lent to asking for more evidence. When a man is 
seeking proof of a proposition, with his mind " open 
to conviction," he is an honest doubter. But when 
he cherishes the spirit of doubt until it becomes a 
mental habit with him there is danger of his reaching 
a point where he will be proof against reason and 
may run into the veriest atheism ; in that case doubt 
is not only dangerous, it is a sin. There is such a 
thing as dishonest doubt — a condition that is described 
as u an evil heart of unbelief." 

Distrust is born of evil experience. We are liable 
to lose our faith in good people by too close a contact 
or association with the bad. An innocent child is 
trustful as well as credulous ; it does not reason, it 
simply believes and confides ; it has not come in con- 
tact with the evil side of life. But it does not remain 
a child : the body develops, the brain expands, the 
experience ripens, and the credulous and trustful 
child becomes the incredulous and distrustful boy, 
and, alas ! often the unbelieving and infidel man. 

One of the most dangerous forms of infidelity is 



272 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

materialism ; for it dishonors our noblest nature. Its 
aim is to dethrone a king, to discrown a royal mon- 
arch. It does not discern, because it does not admit, 
the soul-life of the world. Let materialism prevail, 
and the highest and grandest qualities of human 
nature would be starved to death. Its whole theory 
of the human origin and human nature is degrading. 
Infidelity, in whatever form, in all ages and in all 
lands, has neglected the human soul and spent its 
force upon the lower nature of man. What would 
he be without a belief in the unseen, the spiritual? 
No man is ever great in any department of life who 
does not reach out after the things that are invisible ; 
in other words, who does not act upon the belief in 
things which lie beyond the sight of his eyes. The 
statesman in the hall of the senate has to do with the 
material of the State, but he does more, he grasps the 
great principles which govern things and deals with 
them as they affect the life of the nation. It is this 
that gives him breadth, depth, and power. 

The scientist is ever searching for the invisible — 
the atom, molecule, germ, or occult law in nature. 
The poet thus inspired beholds clearly what others 
do not see. The fact is outward and tangible, but 
the philosophy is inward, subtle, and invisible. New- 
ton saw the apple fall to the ground, but he did not 
see gravitation with the same eyes ; and yet he surely 
looked upon the invisible. What a grasp this insight, 
or, better, the spiritual sight, gives to philosophy ! It 
makes the master every-where. The greatest power 
in us is the faith-power, which has made possible 
" the evidence of things not seen."" Here we can 
strike hands with St. Paul across the spanning cent- 



WE A T IS TR UTH ? 273 

nries and say, " While we look not at the things 
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen : 
for the tilings which are seen are temporal ; but the 
tilings which are not seen are eternal." No man can 
lay any claim to greatness who does not believe 
in the things which lie beyond the range of mortal 
sight. 

Skepticism is often a covert for sin ; the skeptic 
says, " I do not accept your creed. I do not believe in 
your Bible ; it is as full of myths and fables as Homer 
or any other of the old Greek classics ; " and so he 
plunges too often into sin. Infidel eras in all ages 
and in all lands have been connected with selfishness, 
luxury, and license. A recent writer thus puts the 
case strongly : " The miser has no faith in kindness, 
the seducer no faith in woman's virtue, the trader in 
souls no faith in the rights of the weak, the traitor, 
no faith in loyalty ; and such men as Nabal, Judas 
Iscariot, and Benedict Arnold carry about them in- 
herent damnation." 

There is a close relation between skepticism and 
crime. 

The question is ever being asked, "Why are there 
so many suicides?" We answer, Because men live 
abnormally. Suicide is held by the courts to be an in- 
sane act. He who deliberately sends the bullet crash- 
ing through his brain, or takes his life by any other 
method, gives proof to the world that he is either 
mentally wrecked or that he has wrong views of God 
and human accountability. Look at it more broadly, 
and nothing is truer than that want of faith in a 
community or nation is followed by a corresponding 

deterioration of the moral spirit. The Germany of 

18 



274 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

to-day is reaping the harvest of " advanced thought," 
or skepticism. Crime is said to have increased in some 
parts of the empire during the last few y£ars two 
or three hundred per cent. The number of impris- 
onments, from recent statistical reports, in several 
German States has advanced enormously. The 
prisons are full, and patriotic men are urging the 
government to found a penal colony on some island 
of the Pacific Ocean or in western Africa, not for 
nihilists and socialists, but for common criminals. 
The court chaplain (Rev. Dr. Baur) preached a ser- 
mon before the late Emperor William in which he 
said : " Affection, faith, and obedience to the word of 
God are unknown in this country — in this our great 
German fatherland, which formerly was justly called 
'the home of the faith.' On the contrary, it really 
seems as if it were the father of all lies who is now 
worshiped in Prussia. What formerly was considered 
generous and noble is now looked upon with con- 
tempt, and theft and swindling are called by the 
euphonic name ' business.' Marriages ar,e concluded 
without the blessing of the Church, concluded 'on 
trial,' to be broken if not found to answer. We still 
have a Sunday, but it is only a Sunday in name, as 
the people work during church hours and spend the 
afternoon and evening in rioting in the public-houses 
and music-halls ; while the upper classes rush to the 
races, preferring to hear the panting of the tortured 
horses to hearing the word of God, which is ridiculed 
in the press and turned into blasphemy in the popular 
assemblies ; the servants of God are insulted daily." 

The value of truth lies not in any mere theory, but 
in its practical application. We need the Christian 



WHAT IS TRUTH f 275 

belief, and we need the Christian practice, for where 
there is no criterion of the true there can be no 
standard of the good; and • in the chaos of universal 
doubt and unbelief virtue must also founder and 
perish. The world — and twenty centuries ago im- 
perial Rome meant the world — had reached the very 
acme of sensualism. Wealth was unbounded ; indi- 
vidual fortunes were enormous among the great. 
Luxury, idleness, amusements, brought their curses 
on society. Men read philosophy — believed in the 
gods and oracles ; but alas ! virtue was almost ban- 
ished from the earth. There was then just such a 
condition morally as some dreamers court at this 
hour, and whose teachings, if believed and practiced, 
,would reproduce in modern America the foul stench 
of ancient Rome. There were, however, a few dim 
lights that almost flickered to their death; if they did 
no more they served to reveal the surrounding dark- 
ness. It was time that heaven should send a Teacher, 
if truth and virtue were to be preserved upon the 
earth ; and the wisest of the heathen looked for the 
advent of One whom the ancient oracles had dimly 
announced as the Revealer of truth to men. In the 
fullness of time he came, and his word authoritatively 
ascertains to us both the reality and the cei'tainty of 
truth. "To this end was I born, and for this cause 
came I into the world, that I should bear witness 
unto the truth." Notwithstanding the failure of hu- 
man speculations, truth still has a substantive exist- 
ence; and it is sufficiently dear to the heart of the 
honest searcher. 

Many besides Pontius Pilate have asked the ques- 
tion, " What is truth ? " And so despaired they of 



276 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

answer that they paused not long enough to hear the 
echo of their own question. This was the mistake of 
Pilate. Had he bowed his head and waited it would 
have flashed upon him, for Truth stood before him. 
Truth does exist, and the great Teacher told his dis- 
ciples the "truth should make them free." 

Truth is defined as u conformity to reality." It is 
the exact statement of things as they are ; not false- 
hood nor illusion, nor even appearance, but simply 
reality. It runs through every thing. Falsehood 
may supplant it in the individual life, in society, and 
even in national life ; but nothing can live and prosper 
long that is not buttressed on the Rock of Ages. 
Jesus said, " I am the Truth." The individual who 
attempts to make black white, or white black, will fail 
sooner or later. There is a golden line of truth which 
starts with God and runs through the universe. And 
wherever mankind have found this golden way, and 
walked in it, they have gone forward to great des- 
tinies. All truth is essentially moral — may it not be 
said religious ? — whether it be called historic, scientific, 
or political, and this because it is born of God and 
affects the life of the humblest intelligent being. 
There is such a condition as righteousness, to promote 
which the Bible exists ; it has its foundation in right 
thinking. 

Let us take up history and traverse its development 
through the ages, from the day which was honored 
by man's appearance on the earth to this hour, and 
what do we find ? The answer is plain : there have 
been conflicts in these historic epochs; age has seem- 
ingly been arrayed against age ; force has contended 
against force, and law has been in conflict with law. 



WHAT IS TRUTH? 277 

But these conflicts of history have been less real than 
apparent. To show this let ns turn from any and all 
single epochs to the great cycle of historic develop- 
ment, and in doing so we see that these unfoldings of 
history have been due to great natural laws regulated, 
counterbalanced, overruled by the Author of nature, 
for he has not withdrawn his presence from the world 
and retired off into the serene heavens, to be eternally 
lost in self-contemplation. "My father worketh hith- 
erto, and I work." God is in the material world its 
Origin and its Governor ; no less is he in human life, 
ever present, ever active ; and they must indeed be 
blind who cannot see the footprints of Jehovah in the 
sands of time. Take a single illustration among many 
that might be selected from ancient and modern his- 
tory. 

The power of Napoleon Bonaparte culminated at 
the peace of Tilsit. All Europe, England excepted, 
was at his feet. To perpetuate his power he then 
conceived the project of a close alliance with Alexan- 
der of Russia, who, though beaten in the field, was 
fascinated by the dazzling splendor of his adversary's 
peerless genius. United by close ties to that mighty 
autocrat, what power could disturb the security of 
his throne ? Thus reasoned Napoleon's selfish judg- 
ment. To gain this end he made a promise — to let 
Alexander in due time w^rest Constantinople from the 
Turks. This promise he did not intend to keep. 
"While flattering he consciously deceived his ally, 
who, believing him sincere, swallowed the bait and 
avowed himself the friend, the admirer, and the ally 
of the dreaded conqueror. 

That deceptive promise, begotten of his intense 



278 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

selfishness, ruined Napoleon. When his insincerity 
became apparent Alexander became his irreconcil- 
able enemy and tempted him to hurl his magnificent 
army of six hundred thousand men upon the capital 
of his dominions. Then Napoleon's selfishness gave 
birth to that proud self-confidence which originated 
his insane march on Moscow. The failure of that 
fearful campaign, by destroying the bulk and flower 
of his army, sapped the foundations of his throne. 
It is impossible to see how he could have been over- 
thrown but for those irreparable losses, which were 
succeeded by combinations among his enemies that 
terminated his empire and his life at St. Helena. 

Thus was Napoleon self-punished. There is no 
evidence that God interfered by any immediate per- 
sonal act to effect his overthrow. Every step in 
the process can be traced to the natural action of his 
own self-disordered mind. With equal truth it may 
be affirmed that God overthrew him, inasmuch as it 
is by his arrangement that a selfish rejection of divine 
claims becomes the cause of such disordered mental 
and moral action in the ruin of the selfish man. Thus 
does sin punish itself, and history finds its equilibrium 
in the long periods. 

If we turn to science, or to nature, of which science 
is but the dictionary, we shall see the marks of great 
contests. Volcanic fires have upheaved the rocky 
crust of the globe, as if to beat back the ocean, while 
the ocean has swelled and. heaved like an omnipotent 
giant in defense, seemingly, of its own dominions. Ip. 
nature all about us there are in daily operation forces 
and counter-forces. Yital force uplifts vegetation, 
from the moss that festoons the rock to the oak in 



WHA T IS TR UTH ? 279 

the forest, creating leaves, flowers, fruits, and then 
the frosts, winds, and snows turn them back into their 
primal elements again. Decay follows growth, and 
growth succeeds decay in an endless series. Fire and 
water are natural antagonists. The sun's ray lifts 
the vapor toward the skies, while the earth's attractive 
power draws it back in refreshing showers or some- 
times in devastating storms. These are opposing 
forces, each considered by itself ; but that very opposi- 
tion implies a unity in fact, resulting from the law 
which gives us seed-time and harvest, summer and 
winter, flowers and fruits in their season. 

In the physical world, as well as in the world's moral 
history, conflicts are only in the short periods, and 
hence are only apparent. One age in the world's 
progress is found to have been in conflict with other 
ages ; but if we keep in view all the ages it is clear 
that they harmonize into one beautiful age. All point 
to a completed period, a great and symmetrical whole 
composed of many parts, unlike, possibly, but each 
contributing to the sum. For illustration, suppose we 
lay a car-load of crude iron at the door of the machine- 
shop and leave an order for a locomotive. These 
men of clear brains and strong arms will go to work ; 
they will take up this metal and subject it to the 
heat of the furnace and the strokes of the trip-ham- 
mer. It will pass into all shapes by the action of lire 
and forge and lathe ; and, scattered through all the 
departments, it will soon be lost to the unpracticed 
eye. There is no locomotive in those single pieces 
of iron lying about the building or revolving in the 
lathes. But wait until the chief mechanic shall brino; 
all together, these arms, cylinders, and pistons and 



280 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT, 

wheels, and put each to its place. Then you have 
the most magnificent piece of mechanism the eye of 
man ever beheld. It would ill become one not 
skilled in such industries to go in there and condemn 
the work he does not understand. Let us apply this 
to the world about us. To the finite mind there is 
seeming disorder and confusion ; but let us wait for 
the coming together of all the parts — the epochs, the 
eras, the time of completion when the great builder 
shall make the true adjustments ; then it will be 
seen, if net before, that in all there was a ruling 
mind, a Being into whose face we reverently look 
and say, "Father ! " In the light of these reflections 
we can see how every thing has had its work to do, 
whether the invisible animalcule or the mastodon. 
Whether fires that have melted the granites, or ice- 
fields that have covered half the globe in cold and 
darkness — "all things have w r orked together for good ;" 
"fire, and hail; snow, and vapor; stormy wind ful- 
filling his w r ord." 

And all this applies equally to the moral world — the 
world of religious and speculative thought. Here, 
too, we have system in conflict with system : on the 
one hand materialism, on the other spiritualism ; now 
unitarianism, and then trinitarianism. In philosophy 
we have idealism, sensationalism, rationalism, etc. 
There are many systems, and each has its adherents. 
These moral and intellectual conflicts answer to the 
physical, where sea has contended with land, and 
water has waged war with flame. If it be asked 
which shall conquer, this form of religion or that, this 
philosophy or that, we answer, " Stand still and see 
the salvation of God." 



WHAT IS TRUTH? 281 

In the progress of society some things will perish 
entirely because not begotten in the truth ; but the 
right will win. 

" For truth shall conquer at last, 

As round and round we run; 
For ever the right comes uppermost, 

And ever is justice done. 1 ' 

It is well for us to know the truth in all things, in 
science, in history, in politics ; but the highest truth 
we have is that which concerns us as spiritual beings. 
For us to know whether the planets are inhabited or 
not is of small consequence, though the subject is 
not devoid of interest. But to know how to grow 
Godward, how to increase in spiritual life and joy, is 
important in view of the immortal state. What is 
truth ? To know God. It is to this the Bible points. 
It deals with the loftiest truth, because it teaches the 
way of life. But the doubter asks, What about this 
immortality ? Arguments are not needed. Sir Lytton 
Bnlwer, the great English novelist, has this beautiful 
passage on " Our Destiny," or a future life : " It can- 
not be that earth is man's only abiding-place. It 
cannot be that our life is a bubble, cast up by the 
ocean of eternity, to float a moment upon its waves 
and then sink into nothingness. Else why is it that 
the high and glorious, aspirations which leap like 
angels from the temples of our hearts are forever 
wandering about unsatisfied ? Why is it that the 
stars which hold their festival around the midnight 
throne are set above the grasp of our limited facul- 
ties, forever mocking us with their unapproachable 
glory ? And, finally, why is it that bright forms of 
beauty are represented to our view and then taken 



282 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

from us, leaving the ten thousand streams of our 
affections to flow back in one Alpine torrent upon 
our hearts ? Surely we are horn for a higher destiny 
than that of earth. There is a realm where the rain- 
bow never fades, where the stars will spread out 
before us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and 
where the beautiful beings which here pass before us 
like shadows will stay in our presence forever." 
Surely no one disbelieves the statement that nature 
is a great book of truth, and can be read as any other 
book is read. 

We can talk with each other without words, with 
signs and symbols ; even the eye or countenance 
may express the desires of the heart or the thoughts 
of the mind. Language may be a divine gift in the 
sense of a power or faculty created in us to enable us 
to communicate our ideas and understand each other ; 
but mere speech is conventional, and a new language 
is possible at any time or in any place. 

God has spoken to mankind in words, but he has 
also spoken in signs. The sun, the moon, the mount- 
ains, the birds and lilies of the field are signs of his 
ideas. Here we are told of his power, as when the 
earth rocks or the mountains are lifted toward the 
skies. The daisy that smiles at us in the green fields 
and the rose which blooms in the garden tell us of 
God's idea of beauty. Every law of God in nature 
reveals his infinite wisdom. " The heavens declare 
the glory of God." All nature proclaims its Author. 
Who can doubt the existence of God ? What lessons 
of power, wisdom, and love are every-where presented 
to us in the universe? Ten thousand voices are ever 
speaking to us out of the deep where he dwells. But 



WHA T IS TRUTH ? 283 

the doubter says, " It is not this book of nature I 
disbelieve, but the written volume, the Bible." And 
so he rejects the latter because of its few mysteries, 
but accepts the former with all its ten thousand mys- 
teries, alas ! for man. 

We were rambling one day several years ago through 
that beautiful region, the Connecticut valley, a locality 
famous for wonderful — so-called — " bird-tracks " that 
appear in the red sandstone which crops out in that 
region. And as we gazed upon some of the slabs 
which retain the impressions of these ancient foot- 
prints of bird or batrachian — some think the latter — 
we were deeply moved, not so much at the tracks them- 
selves as at their wonderful — shall we say miraculous? 
— preservation. Think of it a moment ! Thousands, 
possibly tens of thousands, of years ago a mammoth 
bird belonging to an extinct species walked along 
the sea-beach one day in quest of food, followed in 
her search, as we see now among our fowls, by her 
brood of birdlings. Right, left, right, left, the mother- 
bird and the baby-birds put their feet into the soft 
sand of the old sea-beach, left by the retiring tide. 
The birds w T ent away, no one knows whither ; but by 
and by the tides came again upon the tracked beach ; 
the new sand filled them up and covered them over. 
The days, the years, the ages sped away ; other tides 
ebbed and flowed ; the planet swept round in its 
orbit, the globe's great face changed, and the very 
sea on whose sandy beach the birds walked was 
no more. The continents w^ere reconstructed, the 
seas re-formed, and the beach rose to a higher level; 
the waters flowed to other depths. Centuries by tens 
and hundreds rolled into eternity ; other geological 



284 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

eras succeeded that of the "Red Sandstone." Man 
comes, the lord of this lower world ; he seeks the 
brown-stone to build his great palace in the city. 
Yonder, by screw and derrick, he lifts out of their old 
beds the rocky pages on which are inscribed these 
records of a former world. The huge block is cut 
out, raised up, and turned upon its edge ; the wedge 
of iron is driven in, and lo ! it parts right where the 
birds walked, and the casts of their foot-prints are 
perfect, showing even the rings of the toes and .the 
joints and the claw-nails as if they had been made but 
yesterday. We say it is marvelous. Truly it is ; and 
so is it marvelous that the words we speak, the deeds 
we perform, are recorded in God's great book of 
memory. Ages will pass away, and some day the 
steps we have taken will re-appear. For in God's 
mind nothing shall ever be forgotten. Not only are 
w r e ourselves immortal, but our very thoughts, our 
w T ords, are immortal. When we are gone no one can 
tell whither some careless word or deed may come up 
to darken our life record and confront us in the judg- 
ment ; or some good word or deed will yield its hal- 
lowed fruit. Yes, and the affection of the old bird 
for her voting is even chronicled in the stone of the 
ages. Love lives on when seas have departed and 
the globe has changed its face. Surely the greatest 
of principles is love. 



THE AGE OF SCIENCE. 28 5 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE AGE OE SCIENCE. 

IT is well to speak of " science and religion," for, 
while they mutually support each other, when 
properly understood, they are as distinct from each 
other as the earth and the heavens. Science is not a 
religion ; at least it should not be so considered, though 
some men worship only at this shrine. Nor is relig- 
ion science ; they walk the earth hand in hand, and, 
like the sun and moon, both shine upon the pathway 
of man, but with as much difference of light as the sun 
and moon. Science has served the w^orld well in that 
it has dispelled many a cloud of superstition and 
abolished many a myth and dreamy speculation. The 
drift of all the religions in the past has been toward 
mere superstition ; and even Christianity has not 
always been free from the charge. But do we not 
know that the tendency of cold science is to blot out 
much that is characteristic of religion ? Poetry, im- 
agination, and emotion fare hardly at the hands of 
science when her votaries misemploy her teachings. 

We have elsewhere stated that the Bible is not a 
text-book on science; and yet the sacred writers are 
not untrue to its claims. That Moses should have 
described the great scheme of creation so correctly 
proves something. The account of the world's begin- 
ning as given in Genesis, in our English version, is 
marred somewhat by its form ; it is broken up into 



286 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

arbitrary verses, and is then split right across the 
middle into two chapters, which renders it, as some- 
body has said, " like a shattered mirror." 

The division into verses of the whole book is very 
helpful ; but it often detracts from the real meaning 
unless the reader is well versed in the sacred word. 
Some writers have treated this portion of the Bible 
as a poem. Klopstock in his time spoke of it as " an 
ode to creation." Dr. Whedon styled it "a grand 
symbolic hymn to creation." He says : " The rhyth- 
mical character of the passage, its stately grandeur, its 
parallelisms, its refrains, its unity within itself, all 
combine to show that it is a poem." The late Dr. B. 
F. Cocker writes : * " But to him that can look with a 
clear eye on this sublime composition and grasp its 
real unity it is unquestionably a real hymn, composed, 
in all probability, by Adam, and chanted in the tents 
of the patriarchs in their evening and morning worship 
for more than two thousand years, to commemorate 
the fact and keep alive the faith that this is the work 
of the Triune God." The same author goes on to 
say, " It has first an exordium, the proemial part ; 
then it is articulated into six strophes ; then there is 
an epode, or peroration. The six strophes part spon- 
taneously into two groups, in which there is a balance 
and correlation of parts celebrating the first three, and 
the last three concordant steps of the creative act, the 
strophe and the antistrophe." 

While admitting that great truths may be taught by 
poems, psalms, or hymns, with these sentiments just 
quoted we cannot, with all deference, coincide. The 
condensed history of creation as given by Moses is 

* University Lectures. 



THE AGE OF SCIENCE. 287 

far more than a mere poem, however rhythmic it 
may be or formal. The theory of Hugh Miller 
and others seems to be more in harmony with the 
teachings of Moses than that which has just been 
advanced. Mr. Miller, following in the footsteps of 
continental writers, adopted the theory of a series of 
sublime visions that passed before the eye of Moses, 
in which, as it were, he " read prophecy backward." 
Both Kurtz and Eichhorn see in Genesis rather a 
" creative picture than a creative history," a series 
of prophetic tableaux, each containing a leading phase 
in the drama of creation. " Before the eye of the 
seer," remarks Dr. Kurtz, " scene after scene is un- 
folded, until at length in the seven of them the course 
of creation in its main momenta has been fully repre- 
sented ; " to which Hugh Miller adds : " The revela- 
tion has every characteristic of prophecy by vision, 
prophecy by eye-witnessing ; and may perhaps be best 
understood by regarding it simply as an exhibition of 
the actual phenomena of creation presented to the 
mental eye of the prophet under the ordinary laws of 
perspective, and truthfully described by him in the 
simple language of his time." On the other hand, 
Professor McCaul, of Kings College, London,* tells 
us that a comparison of the actual statement of Moses 
with the discoveries and conclusions of modern science 
is so far from shaking that it confirms our faith in 
the accuracy of the sacred narrative. We are aston- 
ished to see how the Hebrew prophet in his brief and 
rapid outline, sketched three thousand years ago, lias 
anticipated some of the most wonderful of recent dis- 
coveries, and we can ascribe the accuracy of his state- 

* Aids to Faith. 



288 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

merits and language to nothing but inspiration. Moses 
relates how God created the heavens and the earth at 
an indefinitely remote period, before the earth was 
inhabited by man. Geology has lately discovered the 
existence of a long prehuman period. A comparison 
with other Scriptures shows that the " heavens " of 
Moses include the abode of angels and the place of 
the fixed stars which existed before the earth. As- 
tronomy points out remote worlds, whose light began 
its journey long before the existence of man. Moses 
declares that the earth was or became covered with 
water and was desolate and empty. Geology has 
found by investigation that the primitive globe was 
covered with a uniform ocean, and that there was a 
long azoic period during which neither plant nor animal 
could live. Moses states that there was a time when 
the earth was not dependent upon the sun for light or 
heat, when, therefore, there could be no climatic differ- 
ences. Geology has lately verified this statement by 
finding the remains of tropical plants and animals scat- 
tered over all parts of the frozen North. Moses affirms 
that the sun as well as the moon is only a " light-holder.'' 
Astronomy teaches that the sun itself is a non-illumi- 
nating body, dependent for its light on the luminous 
atmosphere. Moses asserts that the earth existed be- 
fore the sun was given as a luminary. Modern science 
proposes a theory which explains how this was possi- 
ble. Moses asserts that there is an expanse extending 
from earth to distant heights, in which the heavenly 
bodies are placed. Recent discoveries lead to the 
supposition of some subtile fluid medium through 
which they move. Moses describes the process of 
creation as gradual, and mentions the order in which 



THE A GE OF SCIENCE. 289 

living things appear — plants, fishes, fowls, land animals, 
man. By the study of nature, geology has arrived 
independently at the same conclusion. Where did 
Moses obtain all this knowledge ? How was it that 
he worded his rapid sketch with such scientific accu- 
racy ? If he in his day possessed the knowledge which 
genius and science have attained only recently, that 
knowledge was superhuman. If he did not possess 
the knowledge, then his pen must have been guided 
by superhuman wisdom. 

Dr. Samuel Kinns, in a recent lecture given in the 
late Earl of Shaftesbury's drawing-room, describes 
fifteen creative events which Moses had placed in the 
direct order of sequence, according to the latest discov- 
eries in science. The bearing of this fact upon the 
inspiration of Moses may be seen from the following 
summary of Dr. Kinns' remarks. 

The lecturer proved that the number of changes 
that can be made in the order of fifteen things is more 
than a billion, namely, 1,307,674,368,000. There- 
fore, if Moses placed fifteen important creative 
events in their proper order, without the possibility 
of traditional help, as most of them happened mill- 
ions of years before man was created, it is a strong 
proof of his inspiration. For, group them as one may, 
and take off a further percentage for any scientific 
knowledge possessed by him, still the chances must be 
reckoned bv hundreds of millions against his giving 
the order correctly without a special revelation from 
God. 

To lead his auditors to appreciate this, Dr. Kinns 
mentioned that a clock beating seconds would take 
over thirty thousand years to tick a billion times. 
19 



290 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

If any fifteen different events could be written 
down once in every ten minutes it would take twenty- 
four millions of years to write all the variations that 
could be made in their order, writing them day and 
night without intermission. 

To further illustrate it he distributed slips of paper 
for each to write down the first fifteen letters of the 
alphabet in an order known only to himself, some- 
thing in this way : 

g in h d aj b k of e n i o Z, 

and not one corresponded with his. He told them 
that if all the people in the world were to try to imi- 
tate his unknown order there would be still a thousand 
chances to one that the whole 1,200,000,000 attempts 
would be incorrect. Or, in other words, if all the 
people in a thousand worlds, each having a population 
equal to our own, were to try there would still be a 
probability that not one list would agree in sequence 
with the unknown list. 

After this he asks, How will the skeptic explain the 
marvelous, nay, miraculous, accuracy in sequence of 
the Mosaic cosmogony? Faith, therefore, has nothing 
to fear from science. So far the records of nature, 
fairly studied and rightly interpreted, have proved 
the most valuable and satisfying of all commentaries 
upon the statements of Scripture. The first chapter 
of this oldest book, to say nothing of any other part, 
is proof of the whole theory of inspiration. Moses 
lived in an age long antedating scientific discovery. 
Geology, chemistry, and astronomy were then un- 
known, and for ages afterward mankind had no concep- 
tion either of the extent of the universe or of the laws 



THE AGE OF SCIENCE, 291 

regulating it. Of its extent we yet know but little, 
while its laws are only partially known. A good 
many thousand years have passed since Moses wrote. 
Great progress lias been made, and to-day we must 
conclude that Moses was either versed in science or 
that he was divinely aided. No one claims the 
former. 

While not aiming to teach science, it is a simple 
fact that not only Moses, but Solomon, Job, and some 
others of the sacred penmen wrote what is now ad- 
mitted to be scientific truth. Professor M. F. Maury * 
presents some very striking illustrations of this sub- 
ject, showing that the facts of both science and Script- 
ure remain unchanged. He points out many traces 
in the Old Testament of scientific knowledge. 

In that oldest book in the Bible — the book of Job — 
written sometime between the days of Moses and 
Abraham, the question is asked, " Canst thou bind 
the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of 
Orion ? " f The word " Pleiades " is derived from the 
Greek, and means to sail. The name has been applied 
to the beautiful cluster of the Seven Stars known as 
the "Little Dipper," because Greek navigation began 
at their rise and closed at their setting. The star 
Alcyon is the principal star in this cluster, and has 
been thought to be the center of the stellar universe 
to which our system more immediately belongs. "It 
is a curious fact," writes Professor Maury, "that the 
revelations of science have led astronomers in our 
own day to the discovery that the sun is not the 
dead center of motion around which comets sweep 
and planets whirl, but that it, with its splendid retinue 

* Physical Geography of the Sea, \ Job xxxviii, 31. 



292 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

of worlds and satellites, is revolving through the 
realms of space at the rate of millions of miles in a 
year, and in obedience to some influence situated pre- 
cisely in the direction of the star Alcyon, one of the 
Pleiades. We do not know how far off in the im- 
mensities of space that center of revolving cycles and 
epicycles may be ; nor have our oldest observers or 
nicest instruments been able to tell how far off in the 
skies that beautiful cluster of stars is hung whose ' in- 
fluences ' man can never bind. In this question and 
the answer to it are involved both the recognition and 
exposition of the whole theory of gravitation." 

In that same book it is written, " He maketh the 
weight for the winds." * Galileo in prison knew that 
the atmospheric pressure was equal to fifteen pounds 
to the square inch, and that the reason why a certain 
pump of that day did not lift water higher than 
thirty-two feet was because of this law in nature. 
But Galileo did not have courage to tell the world 
all he knew. Job, thousands of years before, had 
enunciated the fact in the brief text above quoted. 
What did this old Arabian philosopher mean when 
he said, " He stretcheth out the north over the empty 
place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing ? " f How 
could the idea of gravitation have been more beauti- 
fully set forth ? 

" Here is another proof," says Maury, " that Job 
was familiar with the laws of gravitation, for he knew 
how the world was held in its place ; and as for the 
'empty place' in the sky, Sir John Herschel has been 
sounding the heavens with his powerful telescope and 
gauging the stars, and where do you think he finds 

* Job xxviii, 25. f Job xxvi, 7. 



THE AGE OF SCIENCE. 293 

the most barren part — the empty place — of the sky? 
In the north, precisely as Job told Bildad the Shuhite, 
the empty place was stretched out. It is there where 
comets most incline to roam and hide themselves in 
emptiness."" 

Elsewhere the patriarch of Hz uses an expression 
which contains the idea of the magnetic telegraph. 
He asks the question, " Canst thou send lightnings, 
that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are ? " * 
"We answer, " Yes, Job, we are sending the ' light- 
nings ' on errands now all over the world." David in 
like manner says : " Their line is gone out through all 
the earth, and their words to the end of the world." f 
This is quite a good description of the modern tele- 
graph system, whether the royal singer meant it to be 
so or not. But this we know T , the forces of nature 
employed in human life to-day existed in the times of 
Solomon and Job and Moses, and could have been 
utilized then just as well as now if mankind had 
known how. But we must conclude that the time 
had not yet come for such things. " The mills of 
God grind slow." The world has been a long while 
in reaching its present perfection. 

Solomon, too, was a man of science. In a simple 
verse he describes the circulation of the atmosphere 
as actual observation is now showing it to be. " The 
wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto 
the north ; it whirleth about continually, and the wind 
returneth again according to his circuits." $ This de- 
scribes correctly certain aerial currents known to the 
meteorologist. So that, without professing to be so, 
Solomon was scientific. 

* Job xxxviii, 35. f Psa. xix, 4. \ Eccl. i, 6. 



294 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL T WRIT. 

Not only has the atmosphere its laws, but the ocean 
is obedient to order as the heavenly host in their 
movement, we infer from the fact announced bv him, 
and which contains the essence of volumes by other 
men : " All the rivers run into the sea ; yet the sea is 
not full : unto the place from whence the rivers come, 
thither they return again""* — a passage that some- 
what obscurely refers to the evaporation from large 
bodies of water, particularly in the temperate and tor- 
rid belts, then rising to form clouds which fall again 
in the rain, and also to the flow of streams, caused 
thereby, to the sea again for other and continuous 
evaporations and circulations. u To investigate the 
laws which govern the winds, the rain, the sun, is 
one of the most profitable and beautiful occupations 
that a man, an improving, progressive man, can have. 
The field of astronomy affords no subjects of contem- 
plation more ennobling than those which we may find 
in the air and the sea." Wayward and fickle as seem 
their movements, they are orderly and subject to laws. 
"When the morning stars," says Professor Maury, 
" sang together, the waves also lifted up their voice, 
and the w^inds, too, joined in the almighty anthem. 
As discovery advances we find the marks of order in 
the sea and in the air that is in tune with the music 
of the spheres, and the conviction is forced upon us 
that the laws of all are nothing else but perfect har- 
mony." 

We often hear the w r onders of modern science spoken 
of, and yet how few of us realize their extent ! We 
are constantly making use of them in our daily life 
without scarce thinking of them. The late Horace 

* Eccl. i, 7. 



THE AGE OF SCIENCE. 295 

Greeley once gave utterance to the following high- 
colored and very popular remark when delivering a 
speech at an agricultural fair : 

" The farmer of the corning age — master and man- 
ager of steam and other forces — shall not need pain- 
fully to heave the ponderous rock from its base, but 
will rather, by some little chemical solvent, pulverize 
it to fertile dust where it lies. To his informed, ob- 
servant mind the changes of temperature, the succes- 
sion of calm and storm, shall bring no surprise, no dis- 
aster, being unerringly foreseen and profited by, like 
the rotation of the seasons. For his behoof the plow 
shall pursue its unguided, resistless course across the 
spacious landscape, and the following seed shall fall 
regularly into its appointed place without need of 
special oversight and guidance. The inequalities of 
surface and of soil shall disappear before the steady, 
inexpensive action of natural forces thereon. Steam 
agents shall loosen and deepen the soil to any extent 
desirable, sweeping down forests as a fire does the dry 
grass of the prairies, and extracting roots like a tor- 
nado. There is no practical limit to the powers at 
all times presenting themselves to do the bidding of 
man had he but the talent and genius to adapt and 
apply them. Nature wills that the plow, the scythe, 
the ax, the harvest-wain, shall move forward on their 
proper errands as irresistibly, inexpensively as the 
saw, the throttle, the shuttle, and with equally benefi- 
cent results." 

In this paragraph the orator pictured things some- 
what. There can be no doubt but it was a trifle 

overdrawn. Others besides Mr. Greelev have in- 

t/ 

dulged in that same vein, intimating, if not expressly 



296 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

stating, that in the nature of things, if time endures, 
science will so perfect machinery, eventually, as vastly 
to decrease, if not altogether displace, human labor, 
and effectually disarm the very elements of their 
power to inflict disaster on the human race. That 
the increase and multiplication of machinery will 
vastly decrease a certain kind of labor is certain — that 
we have realized ; and at the same time science will 
help us to guard against disasters arising from the 
" war of the elements." 

We have thermometers and barometers, which serve 
their beneficent purpose. The rising or the falling 
barometer tell unerringly of approaching meteoric 
changes. The thermometer does not forewarn us of 
any future change, but simply records the present. 
We have heard of a church sexton who declared that 
he " didn't take any stock in them there thermome- 
ters, for he couldn't see as they made nary a bit of 
difference in warming up the meetin'-house." 

With all of Mr. Greeley's vivid portrayal of the 
perfected age of science we have not yet reached the 
period of hailstorm-ometers, which farmers would 
like, nor cyclone-ometers and earthquake-ometers, to 
enable us to escape the dreadful consequences which 
follow in their wake. We may yet, however, reach 
such a state of scientific perfection that the tiller of 
the soil will be warned with so much accuracy as to 
make the safe gathering of his crops a certainty, and 
the sailor be enabled to reach port with his craft with 
equal safety. The world is on the march, and if we 
have not yet found the u simple chemical solvent " by 
wdiich the granite bowlder may be instantaneously 
" pulverized into fertile dust," we have discovered 



THE A GE 01 SCIENCE. 297 

dynamite, which comes very near fulfilling the pre- 
diction of the Sage of Chappaqna. 

There are two things lacking to make that perfect 
age : the " philosopher's stone," which transmutes 
whatever it touches into gold, and the long-sought 
" perpetual motion, 55 to discover which much time 
and money have been spent. If we had these, say 
some, we might rest and be rich. But suppose we 
had them, then what ? Gold and diamonds, like praise, 
owe their value to their scarcity. Things become 
cheap when they become plenty. If gold were as 
plenty as sand it would have the same value as sand. 
As to rest, perfect rest from toil in this life would be 
fatal. " There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the peo- 
ple of God. 55 That it " remains 5 ' is well for us and 
the world. Even the dream of the " philosopher's 
stone 55 included the idea of toil, for the stone had to 
be rubbed against the object to be transmuted, and 
that would require effort. To obtain money without 
honestly earning it has been the study of too many 
men, as our state-prisons testify. Philosophy teaches 
us that there is no motion without some resistance or 
friction. Physical power implies a producing agent. 
There can be no effect without an adequate cause, no 
result without original, continued effort. A state of 
perfect rest, were such possible, would be the death of 
efficiency, usefulness, and progress, because the result 
of a loss of actual power. The progress of every na- 
tion in modern times in substantial wealth, comfort, 
and civilization has always been in exact proportion 
to its increase in the amount and respectability of its 
labor, which is a nation's power. It is labor which 
puts value on every thing. A pine-tree standing in a 



298 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

forest is valueless ; cut into lumber by human labor 
it is the equivalent of a certain amount of gold. The 
coal and iron have no value buried awav in the mines 
of the earth until man touches them. Man is the 
true philosopher's stone that transmutes things into 
gold. 

Mr. Greeley's prophecy was very taking, but it does 
not annul the declaration of Holy "Writ : " In the 
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou re- 
turn unto the ground." 

The bright and hopeful signs of the times is that 
a given amount of human labor under the improved 
science of this age produces much greater result than 
formerly. The increase is constant and will continue. 
History tells us of the " Jacks " in feudal times, and 
of the serfs of Russia and the slaves of our own 
country. When these systems prevailed labor was 
degraded. But feudalism, serfdom, and slavery are 
gone, and labor where those systems prevailed has 
become and is becoming more and more dignified and 
honorable in the estimation of mankind. The in- 
creased wants of the present age could hardly be sup- 
plied by the old methods. The unassisted labor of 
the ruder times was sufficient then, but would be very 
inadequate for these times ; and if labor still remained 
as debased and odious as it was two or three hundred 
years ago we should be unable to supply our wants 
if we had any wants. 

To labor is man's destiny, and its fulfillment ought 
not to make him unhappy, but it often does. We 
may ameliorate toil by our machinery, but not free 
ourselves from it. No development of physical power 
will ever be permitted by divine Providence to tran- 



THE A GE OF SCIENCE. 299 

scend the purposes of manual toil and defeat the laws 
which regulate it. Human perfection does not imply 
an age of indolence. The highest glory of mankind 
is that of labor, and such an entire acquiescence in 
the destiny of toil as to cheerfully discharge all duties 
and resignedly hear all the vicissitudes of life. 

Labor is every thing — it gives to all things their 
true value. Take a mass of iron which in its rough 
state is worth four or five dollars, let it be made into 
horseshoes, and its value has increased two or three 
times that amount. Why '? Because labor has been 
expended upon it. And its usefulness has increased 
also ; it protects the horses' feet. But convert that 
bar of iron into needles for sewing, and it is now 
worth, by virtue of the labor which has been ex- 
pended upon it, three or four hundred dollars. But 
make of that iron knife-blades, and it has gone up in 
value to twenty-five hundred dollars. Turn it into 
balance-wheels for watches, and it is worth more than 
twenty-five thousand dollars. The iron remains the 
same all the while, but the labor has been increasing. 

Fifteen hundred acres of land, a part of the terri- 
tory on which the city of Pittsburg, that great and 
busy mart, now stands, was once given in exchange 
for a little lot of wood worth almost nothing to any 
one merely as wood. It would not have weighed half 
a dozen pounds ; but it was wood on which labor of 
the most skilled and delicate kind had been bestowed 
— a rare violin, a " Stainer." These rare old instru- 
ments have been known to bring fabulous prices ; 
but this was surely the greatest price ever paid for a 
handful of wood and a trifle of paint and varnish. 
But the price was not given for the wood with its 



300 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

paint and varnish, but for the inspiration of a match- 
less workman ; for the concentrated experience of not 
one life, but many, put into a curve or fluting; for a 
few thin plates of wood fixed together with an instinct 
that is dead, but which before it died made those slips 
of wood almost a living organism. Well, here it is 
again — labor, skilled labor, is what adds to the value 
and usefulness of all things. 

The almost perfect accuracy with which scientists 
are able to deduce the most minute particulars in their 
several departments appears quite miraculous ; and if 
in the early ages of the world such revelations had 
been made they would have been considered super- 
natural. Take the wonderful phonograph, which re- 
cords sounds, songs, speeches, etc., and preserves 
them to be heard in other lands and distant aws. 
But perhaps the most wonderful of all modern dis- 
coveries is that which puts to a daily use the electric 
force. Between the Old World and the New, below 
the waters of the Atlantic lies a cable, nearly three 
thousand miles long, over which this force passes in 
some mysterious way and is made to convey our mes- 
sages of love, business, or politics. No words are 
carried through the dull wire, but an impression is 
made which conventionally means something. But 
somewhere in the ocean, a mile or a thousand or more 
miles away, under some strain or molecular action, 
the cable parts and the instrument fails to do its work. 
Now the wonderful part is that the break can be so 
accurately located. How ? Science knows. A ship 
starts from shore and follows the direction of the ca- 
ble in the deep sea. The miles are counted as the 
ship goes on her way. The sun, millions of miles 



THE A GE OF SCIENCE. 301 

distant in the heavens, is invoked to help ascertain 
the latitude and longitude ; the earth's magnetism is 
made to play its part. By and by the spot is reached, 
the irons are sent down, the cable brought up from its 
bed, the break repaired, and the ship returns to her 
dock — all by the power of science. 

The electrical engineer sits in his office at the na- 
tion's capitol and by means of this force can foretell 
what the weather will be in Florida, Ohio, or Massa- 
chusetts on the morrow. Nature is stable and has 
well-established laws ; these mastered, science easily 
forms her conclusions. So well is the earth under- 
stood that, a few fossils sent to any part of the world, 
the expert geologist is easily able to determine the 
rocky formation from which they were taken. The 
chemist has analyzed the light that has come from 
sun and star, and determined their physical character- 
istics as accurately as if he lived on them. The " infini- 
tude of space " is nothing. From the dimmest light 
which shoots out of the sky-vault, from a star so dis- 
tant that its light, darting through space at the rate of 
twelve million miles a minute, would not reach us in 
a score of years, he tells the elements which it con- 
tains. What wonders there are in the universe of 
which we form a. part ! 

And so while the Bible teaches us the duties and 
obligations we owe to our fellow-man, a knowledge 
of nature explains to us the things with which we 
have to do in our relations to the world about us. 
Man has invented the telescope, by means of which 
he is enabled to sound the depths of space, and he 
lias invented the microscope, which reveals to his 
senses the wonders of the invisible world. The hu- 



302 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

man mind instinctively seeks for knowledge of that 
which lies beyond our natural sight. Nature implies 
the supernatural ; we partake of both. It is with this 
relation that religion deals, and instruction in the su- 
pernatural is of far more importance to us than in 
the natural. The Bible regulates the life of the in- 
dividual and of society. Science interests the mind 
and enhances human power, but it cannot satisfy our 
spiritual cravings, for it is not a religion. It cannot 
furnish a safe and permanent basis of ethics. Man- 
kind will have a religion, and that which is now ac- 
cepted as the best cannot be displaced unless it be by 
a better religion, if that were possible ; but it must 
contain supernatural elements, and, therefore, equally 
transcending the sphere within which physical science 
moves. Away with this clamor about Christianity 
being opposed to science ! A recent writer says on 
this subject, what needs to be kept in view by all : 

" Who or what has raised science to its present 
commanding position? What influence is it that has 
trained the investigator, educated the people, and 
made it possible for the scientific man to exist and 
the people to comprehend him ? Who built Harvard 
College? What motives form the foundation-stones 
of Yale? To whom and to what are the great insti- 
tutions of learning, scattered all over this country, in- 
debted for their existence ? There is hardly one of 
these that did not have its birth in and has not had its 
growth from Christianity. The founders of all these 
institutions, more particularly of greatest influence and 
largest facilities, were Christian men who worked 
simply in the interest of their Master. The special 
scientific schools that have been grafted upon these 



THE AGE OF SCIENCE. 303 

institutions are children of the same parents, reared 
and endowed for the same work. Christianity is the 
undoubted and indisputable mother of the scientific 
colleges of the country. But for her oar colleges 
would never have been built, our common schools 
would never have been instituted. Wherever a free 
Christianity has gone it has carried with it education 
and culture. 

"The public, or a portion of it, seems to forget this, 
or has come to regard Christianity as opposed to sci- 
ence in its nature and aims. It is almost regarded 
by many minds as the friend of darkness, as the op- 
ponent of free inquiry and the enslaver of thought. 
The very men who have been reared by her in some 
instances turn against her, disowning their mother 
and denying the sources of their attainments, and to- 
day she has herself almost forgotten that it is her 
hand that has reared all the temples of learning, 
framed the educational policy of the nation, and, with 
wide sacrifice of treasure, reared the very men who 
are now defaming her." 

"We hold it to be the province of science to emanci- 
pate the mind from the dreadful superstitions which 
have bound the race in all the past. In all ages of 
the world the processes of nature have been viewed 
from the stand-point of the supernatural. When 
Captain Cook, in his voyage around the world, was 
threatened with starvation by the withholding of food 
by the inhabitants of Santa Gloria, knowing that an 
eclipse of the moon was about to take place, he told 
the simple-minded people when it began that it was 
the indignation of the Deity at their evil conduct, and 
food came with the eclipse in abundance. Had they 



304 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

understood science this trick would not have suc- 
ceeded. It was, of course, a prevarication, but then, 
in the mind of the sturdy navigator, " the end justi- 
fied the means," 

But that is not all. Science emancipates the race 
from a large degree of vassalage to labor. Much that 
has always been done by the hand can be done better, 
quicker, and cheaper by machinery. The spinning- 
jenny, the sewing-machine, and kindred inventions 
are real emancipators. The laws and forces of nature 
thus come to man's relief. He does not cease to labor, 
but there is a change in the direction of Lis energy. 
There is less hand- work, more brain-work. Man is 
more of a power the moment he begins to use levers, 
wheels, screws, steam, electricity, etc. And the time 
will come when every tree will be cut down and every 
farrow plowed and every ditch be dug by the employ- 
ment of the forces inherent in matter as they may be 
under the control of the human mind. Here we see 
an explanation of the Scriptures which places man at 
the head of affairs in this world — the lord of this 
lower world — " Thou shalt have dominion." Domin- 
ion he has over fish and fowl and beast, over water, 
fire, and air. All things are put under his feet. 

Professor Silliman, the elder, at the age of eighty- 
two years, spoke thus to the young men : " Still, by 
God's forbearance and blessing, possessing my mental 
powers unimpaired, and looking over the barrier be- 
yond which I soon must pass, I can truly declare that 
in the study and exhibition of science to my pupils 
and fellow-men I have never forgotten to give all 
honor and glory to the infinite Creator, happy if I 
might be the honored interpreter of a portion of his 



THE A GE OF SCIENCE. 305 

works, and of the beautiful structure and beneficent 
laws discovered therein by the labors of my illustrious 
predecessors. It is the result to which right reasoning 
and sound philosophy, as well as religion, would natu- 
rally lead. While I have never concealed my convic- 
tions on these subjects, nor hesitated to declare them 
on all proper occasions, I have also proclaimed my 
belief that while natural religion stands on the basis 
of revelation, consisting as it does of the facts and 
laws which form the domain of science, science has 
never revealed a system of mercy commensurate with 
the moral wants of man. In nature — in God's crea- 
tion — we discover only laws, laws of undeviating strict- 
ness and sore penalties attached to their violation. 
There is associated with natural laws no system of 
mercy. That dispensation is not revealed in nature, 
it is contained in the Scriptures alone. With the 
double view just presented I feel that science and re- 
ligion may walk hand in hand. They form two dis- 
tinct volumes of revelation, and both being records of 
the will of the Creator both may be received as con- 
stituting a unity declaring the mind of God, and 
therefore the study of both becomes a duty and 
is perfectly in accord with our highest moral obli- 
gations. 

" I feel that as this subject respects my fellow-men I 
have done no more than my duty, and I reflect upon 
my course with subdued satisfaction, being persuaded 
that nothing which I have said or omitted to say in 
my published lectures or before the college classes or 
before popular audiences can have favored the erro- 
neous impression that science is hosiile to religion. 

My own conviction is so decidedlv in the opposite 
20 



306 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

direction that I could wish that students of theology 
should also be students of natural science, certainly of 
astronomy, geology, natural philosophy, chemistry, and 
the outlines of natural history." 



" Science, reaching backward through the distance, 

Most earnest child of God ; 
Exposing all the secrets of existence 

With thy divining-rod ! 

I bid thee speed up to the heights supernal, 

Clear thinker ne'er sufficed; 
Go seek and find the laws and truth eternal, 
But leave me Christ. 

II Upon the vanity of pious sages 
Let in the light of day, 

Break down the superstition of all ages, 

Thrust bigotry away. 
Stride on, and bid all stubborn foes defiance, 

Let truth and reason reign ; 
But I beseech thee, 0, immortal Science, 

Let Christ remain! 

" What canst thou give to help me bear my crosses 

In place of him my Lord ? 
And what to compensate for all my losses, 

And bring me sweet reward ? 
With thy clear, cold eye of reason 

Thou couldst not comfort me 
Like One who passed through that dark valley 

In sad Gethsemane. 

" Through all the many hours of sorrow 

What word that thou hast said 
Would make me strong to wait for that to-morrow 

Where I should find my dead ? 
When I am weak and desolate and lonely, 

And prone to follow wrong, 
Not thou, Science, Christ, my Saviour, only 

Can make me strong! 



THE A GE OF SCIENCE. 307 

11 Thou art so cold, so lofty, and so distant, 

Though great my need should be, 
No prayer, however constant and persistent, 

Could bring thee down to me. 
Christ stands so near to help me through each hour, 

To guide me day by day, 
Science, sweeping all before thy power, 

Leave Christ, I pray! " 



808 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL 7 WRIT. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR BELIEF. 

¥HEN we come to analyze the human constitution 
we find that the faculties which constitute our 
responsible agency are intelligence, conscience, affec- 
tion, and will. If we could conceive of a human 
being without knowledge to give direction to his 
energies, then human action would be merely mechan- 
ical. If we could conceive of a man without moral 
perceptive faculties we should have simply a monster. 
If man were to exist destitute of sympathies there 
could be no play of emotion. If that godlike power 
of choice were stricken out of his being, then his life 
would be only dead inertia. 

The existence in the human organization of these 
wonderful powers and faculties, which in their en- 
tirety make man, is the groundwork of his account- 
ability. Each faculty of the soul is under law, so 
that truth is the law of the intellect, uprightness of 
moral life the law of the conscience, affection the law 
of the heart and the spring of its impulses, while obe- 
dience is the law of the will. It is a fearful respon- 
sibility to possess a soul thus endowed with the power 
of intelligence and to find ourselves in a world which is 
a vast whispering-gallery circling all around with the 
voices of God's truth — " voices that speak from the 
sparkling star above us ; voices heard in the hoarse 
surge of the sea and in the murmuring wind that 



RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR BELIEF. 309 

dallies with the leaves and the flowers ; voices which 
come up from the sea, earth, and air, and awake the 
echoes of this vast temple of nature in which man 
should worship God." How gentle is the tone that 
would win us with its love ! How full of pathos 
when his pity speaks of sin and his grace of the par- 
don which his mercy has procured ! And yet how 
severe when offended ! Heaven proclaims judgment 
on the wickedness of mankind : " Repent, or else I 
will come unto you quickly, and will fight against you 
with the sword of my Spirit." 

Who doubts the fact that we are physically ac- 
countable? Who but an insane man would leap from 
a precipice and not expect injury? God is love, but 
still fire will burn, gravitation act on matter, and 
poison kill. Who doubts intellectual accountability? 
lias not many a brilliant mind been overtaxed and 
ruined ? Why, therefore, should any one doubt the 
fact of moral accountability ? How much has every 
rational being to do with his own destiny? What 
means tins wonderful will-power resident in us? If 
it is neglected we drift with the current and are 
mastered by circumstances; if it is used we become 
masters of ourselves and to a great decree of our sur- 
roundings. In other words, are we rational, godlike 
beings, or are we mere machines? Are we the vic- 
tims of mere circumstances, or have we power to 
master them ? The answers to these questions are 
the solution of the problem of human life. Here all 
philosophy has its beginning, and here is the start- 
ing-point of all human accountability. If human life 
is finally and inevitably shaped by its environment, 
then we are the victims of some sort of blind power, 



310 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

call it by what name you will, and there responsibility 
ceases. But if, on the other hand, we are masters 
within certain limits of our surroundings, then we 
are more than machines, and accountability is one of 
the great facts of human life. 

There are conditions w^e do not understand in nat- 
ure ■; but to speak of chance is atheistic. We are 
closely related to the outward world through our 
senses — touch, taste, sight, etc. — but w^e are not " of 
the world." The ideas we get from without ourselves 
are taken into the mind, where they are assimilated 
and assorted and worked over very much as food is 
taken into the stomach, digested and assimilated and 
converted over into muscle, nerve, brain, and bone. 
As this wonderful body is built up out of the matter 
which is in the earth, and carried to these bodily or- 
gans in our food and drink and become a part of our 
physical being, so the thoughts we cherish, the beliefs 
we put in practice, the moral principles we adopt, 
enter into our soul-nature and become part of our real 
selves ; they " grow with our growth and strengthen 
with our strength " until they constitute our very life. 
" For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." 

There are two words in common use which mean very 
nearly the same thing, namely, belief and faith. We 
use the first of these, generally, when we are speaking 
of the ordinary affairs of life ; the latter is used in a 
religious or theological sense. In the heading of this 
chapter I have used the term belief because it in- 
cludes more fully the topic I am considering. The 
question is a pertinent one, Are w T e responsible for 
our belief in religious things? The subject is one of 
very great importance, for it enters into the relations 



RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR BELIEF. 311 

of life daily. Our belief makes or it unmakes us. 
An individual who believes in himself, in his own 
powers and faculties, is far more likely to win the 
prizes of the world than he who has no confidence in 
himself. There is, of course, a difference between, 
undue self-consciousness,' which may run into offensive 
egotism, and a proper estimate which one may put 
upon his natural powers. Humility is esteemed a 
virtue, but even that does not warrant us in unreason- 
ablv underrating the talents which the good Father 
has bestowed upon his child. Every man should 
recognize in himself a moral and intellectual force sent 
into the world for the world's good, and consequently 
not to be despised nor wasted in riotous living. 

Let us hold in mind the parallel between our phys- 
ical and moral environments. We are forced by the 
very conditions of the lives we are living to contend 
with many warring elements in making any headway 
in the physical world. Difficulties are to be over- 
come, innumerable obstacles to be removed, natural 
enemies to be subdued, before we can hope to 
wear the crown of the victor. Success means 
patient thought and patient toil; all mastery is born 
out of endurance. And what is true. in the physical 
is equally true in all of the moral relations of life. 
We are continually confronted with difficulties ; the 
mind must reach out after the truth. Many things 
must be taken on trust ; they must simply be ac- 
cepted and believed, even if not understood. Doubt 
must be overcome by the vigorous putting forth of 
reason and by opening the heart to experience. If 
any young man reads this, let me say to him, " Be con- 
siderate." If he were sitting by my side this minute, 



312 FACT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

with a sensitive soul resting under the shadow of an 
honest doubt, I would like to take him by the hand 
and say, " My brother, come, now, and let us reason 
together." The spiritual warfare of a human soul is 
represented in the Bible as depending on certain 
truths which have been made known to mankind, 
while at the same time disbelief, or unbelief, is as- 
signed as the cause of spiritual death. Belief is 
something positive ; unbelief is negative. We can 
find many illustrations of this in the physical world. 
This great atmospheric sea which completely envelops 
our earth, and is fifty or sixty miles deep, is a mixture 
of two principal substances, oxygen and nitrogen. 
Oxygen is the positive element ; it supports life and 
gives vigor, while nitrogen is a mere diluent, and is 
negative, non-life-giving. Immersed in it death 
would soon follow. Again, the plant deprived of the 
sunlight and shut up in the dark lacks the element 
necessary for its growth, and soon becomes sickly and 
dies. Now, precisely so are w r e helped or hindered 
by belief and unbelief, faith and unfaith. In speak- 
ing of unbelief as something negative it is not to be 
thought of as innocent, and therefore to be trifled 
with. A noted divine says : "* 

" Unbelief is a principle as well as an act, always 
operative with a continuous force, which is not ficti- 
tious, but most dreadfully real. The principle abides, 
even when it is not developed in outward acts. It 
lies behind in the secret disposition, which is the 
spring of all action and gives it complexion. For the 
existence of this we are^responsible, and must plead 
guilty before God. In this view we are chargeable 

* M. B. Palmer, D.D. 



RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR BELIEF. 313 

with unbelief at all times, so long as the disposition 
exists which would prompt the act. In the deepest 
sleep, or when the thoughts are absorbed in worldly 
care, it is the sleep or the preoccupation of an un- 
believer. A tiger is as much a tiger when he sleeps, 
or when he is gorged with his prey, as when the 
ferocity of his nature is fully aroused. The generic 
disposition which forms his characteristic is there — a 
constant quantity ; whether it be dormant or in full 
activity is more an accident than otherwise. So the 
sinner's attitude toward God is one of abiding hostil- 
ity, whether it break forth in insurrection or not; 
and the believing temper which could reject the 
Saviour at any given time w T ill reject him at all times, 
and with this continuous repetition we accordingly 
stand accused at the bar of final judgment." 

The plea that a man is not responsible for his be- 
lief in religious things, and that belief is involuntary, 
has no foundation in the psychological nature. We 
know that by experience. What is belief ? What is 
its relation to the natural progress of society ? How 
does it enter into our moral and religious life ? These 
are questions which come naturally. Belief is the 
assent which the mind gives to a fact or proposition 
on the testimony of the senses or on the ground of 
certain evidence aside from personal knowledge. For 
example, a story is told by some person in whose 
veracity we place the utmost confidence ; it relates to 
something of which we have no personal knowledge. 
Every human being of intelligence can call to mind 
instances of this kind. We are constantly believing 
things on the strength of testimony given by other 
persons. We are ever saying, " I believe." That 



314 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

confidence we place in those about us forms the basis 
of innumerable relationships in business, friend- 
ship, and love. But belief is something different from 
knowledge or science. If the hand be put upon a 
piece of red-hot iron no one would say, " I believe it 
is hot ;" he would know it, alas ! too well. In your hand 
is a bank-bill ; you believe it to be genuine, but you 
really do not know that it is until it is proven to be so 
by a proper test. 

A proposition is made involving certain principles 
to be examined; a close train of reasoning follows, 
and a conclusion is arrived at ; that conclusion is a 
belief. Belief is something of the mind ; and it is as 
natural for us to believe or disbelieve as it is to eat or 
sleep. We find ourselves assenting to things every 
day — if we are thoughtful — which are new to us. 
There is a sense, then, in which belief is faith, and we 
cannot live without believing or exercising faith ; it 
enters into life and helps to make it. It is a first 
mission of the human mind to seek out the truth and 
to discover and expose error. It was when angels 
forsook the truth and embraced error that they were 
dwarfed into devils ; and by forsaking error and 
cleaving to the truth sinful men have arisen to the 
dignity of saints and the companionship of angels. 
Belief is the key of the world's progress. We believe 
in banks, and place in them our money. We believe 
in the coming around of the seasons, and adjust our- 
selves to these conditions. We believe in the purity 
and honor of our friends, and trust them with our 
holiest secrets. How much there is that we believe 
and act upon in the various relations of life of which 
we have no personal knowledge ! We accept the 



RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR BELIEF. 815 

statements of historians, ancient and modern, without 
a question. If any one should now rise up and pro- 
claim that there never was such an event as the siege 
of Troy or the preaching of Peter the Hermit or the 
overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus, what would his 
standing be among intelligent people ? There is a 
scientific instrument known as the spectroscope, of 
which very few persons have any practical knowledge ; 
it is used mostly by astronomers, chemists, and teachers 
of science in our colleges. By its use the savants have 
ascertained many things far beyond ordinary compre- 
hension — for instance, that there is hydrogen in the 
envelope that surrounds the sun ; that copper or zinc 
or iron or some other metals, or all of them, abound 
in the substance of a star so distant from us that we 
cannot conceive of it. We may not know this our- 
selves, for we are not spectroscopists, and yet we accept 
the statement as true ; that which is announced by so 
many eminent men as fully established by the inves- 
tigations of science carries upon its face a claim which 
cannot consistently be ignored. 

Sometimes men of science are mistaken, and things 
are declared to be true on insufficient grounds, but 
new revelations are made and opinions are changed. 
But even then this does not annul the statement that 
we believe things which we do not ourselves from 
our own personal experience know to be true. Science 
foretells an eclipse of the sun or moon, fixing defi- 
nitely the day, the hour, and the minute ; no one 
doubts it. Is it asked why ? Because of the confi- 
dence people have in the statements of honest scien- 
tists. If some explorer should now return from the 
arctic regions and inform us that an open polar sea 



316 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

4 

had been discovered, and that his ship had sailed its 
waters, the world, without seeing it, would believe in 
it. The adventures of Livingstone and Stanley in the 
heart of the Dark Continent are eagerly read; and 
though none of us have been there, and possibly we 
do not know any thing of the country, who would 
for one moment think of professing his unbelief in 
their statements? And if anyone should be so in- 
credulous as to declare his disbelief he would be 
laughed at and be looked upon as mentally defective. 
The chemist has published to the world the fact 
that strychnine is a deadly poison. Suppose, now, 
not having any personal knowledge of this virulent 
narcotic, I should disregard the teachings of men 
and books and give this to my friend and thereby 
cause his death. The law would arrest me and try 
me, and, though I might plead ignorance and want 
of experience in the use of the deadly drug, it 
would justly punish me for murder or manslaughter, 
or send me to the asylum as an insane and dangerous 
person. It is my duty to know of its destructive 
qualities, or to believe what others have written and 
said of it. In this case I certainly would be respon- 
sible for my belief. In our courts of justice ignorance 
of the common law is never appealed to as an exten- 
uation of criminal acts. If they were, what greater 
lawlessness there would be ! No one can go before a 
judge and jury and say, "I did not know that I was 
committing a crime," with much expectation on that 
ground. Why do so many persons base their opinions 
and their actions in secular affairs on the personal 
testimony of others, without any knowledge of their 
own, and not unf requently at the risk of health, prop- 



RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR BELIEF. 317 

erty, and life, and then when they come to the Bible 
and the Christian doctrine begin to object and tell ns 
that tiie evidence is not sufficient? To all such there 
is one text of Scripture which is most applicable — 
that last appeal where the great Teacher said, "If 
any man will do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of 
myself." 



318 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE LOGIC OF EXPERIENCE. 

THE birth of Christ was an event which may well 
be described as " the miracle of miracles." Births, 
like deaths, are of every moment occurrence, but the 
number of the former far exceeds that of the latter. 
The birth of Christ includes every essential feature of 
a human birth ; but it was far more than that — it was 
the enswathement in human flesh of the supreme 
Divinity ; a personal manifestation of the Infinite in 
the sphere of the finite. That one event alone in our 
earth history is of all the most marvelous and myste- 
rious ; and is, indeed, the sum of all Bible teachings. 

It is one of the greatest facts recorded in Holy 
"Writ that God was " manifest in the flesh." Jesus 
was not merely a man divinely commissioned to do a 
particular work, but he was Divinity himself. 

That he was rejected by the very people from whom 
he sprang, and to whom he came first — " his own " — 
is another great fact in the religious history of the 
world. There was no fiction here ; Jesus was not a 
myth, but a man. There was something in his mag- 
netic nature or in his demeanor or his words that 
drew men about him ; u great multitudes followed 
him." A long line of distinguished prophets had in 
various forms of speech, in prose and in poetry, in 
metaphor and vision, proclaimed his advent; and not 
only Jews,, but Gentiles, looked anxiously for the 



THE LOGIC OF EXPERIENCE, 319 

coming of a Teacher of men. The old prophets had 
pointed out with somewhat of particularity the place 
where he should be born, and had described his per- 
son and character with marvelous exactness. The 
child Jesus, who was born in " Bethlehem of Judea," 
answered to these pen-pictures of the ancient seers so 
minutely that it is difficult to see how any one after 
examining them can possibly be a disbeliever in the 
Messiahship of Jesus of Xazareth. The birth, the 
life, the death of Jesus Christ have passed into history, 
and are among its leading and most sublime and sub- 
stantial facts. Men of modern times have discovered 
nothing new in relation to the Nazarene. In his own 
day some of his neighbors said, " He is a good man ; "• 
others said, " He deceiveth the people ; " then, as now, 
he was not esteemed alike by all. The fact that there 
are many who turn away from him and look upon 
his followers as the victims of delusions is no argu- 
ment against the religion of Jesus. Christianity is 
fast becoming the religion of the whole world. The 
objections are not arrayed against the moral system 
which he inaugurated, but against his claim to be the 
Teacher and Saviour of all men, as well as against 
the miraculous birth, his resurrection from the dead, 
and his " wonderful works." When these are under 
review we hear the exclamation even yet, " How can 
these things be ? " 

The human heart does not always and naturally 
turn to the good and the pure ; mankind do not al- 
ways follow the path which leads to their highest and 
best interest. Why ? It must be because the eye is 
blinded and the nature vitiated. But what has done 
this ? Sin. 



320 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

Sin is, then, the most startling and awful fact in 
the world's history. But when this is charged upon 
men we must not lose sight of another fact, namely, 
that there are some people who, though not followers 
of Christ in a purely spiritual sense, who are not 
Christians, yet are kind and loving fathers, ten- 
der mothers, dutiful children, honest, patriotic, and 
noble-souled. Furthermore, sin has degrees ; it ranges 
from that of the least deflection from a life of per- 
sonal purity to the utmost depravity of the heart. 
What is this condition but spiritual negativeness — an 
absence of the divine life in the soul with the natural 
traits of human character — the instincts and impulses 
left intact ? Sin, therefore, in the human heart is 
reconcilable with intelligence, affection for friends, 
and integrity of character. To say that man is a sin- 
ner may mean that he is vicious in character, a very 
fiend in the malignity of his purposes, or it may mean 
that he is a pauper on the spiritual side, an atheos — 
one u without God." For the purpose of illustration 
on this point, suppose we should take an elegantly 
wrought vase, and, dashing it upon the pavement, 
shatter it into a hundred pieces, each fragment of that 
vase would preserve the delicate workmanship of the 
whole. Man is that broken vase. There are traces 
of wonderful workmanship in his make even as he is 
-to-day — even in his moral depression is he God-like. 
But there is something wrong in his nature when he 
refuses the good and the pure and deliberately elects 
the base — the vile. Look at the depth of his sympa- 
thy, the grasp of his intellect, the power or his will ; 
each one of these traits, like a fragment of the broken 
vase, tells of the original and wonderful being as he 



THE LOGIC OF EXPERIENCE. 321 

came from the hand of his God. Is it not true that 
among the philosophers, statesmen, scientists, poets, 
and teachers there are to be found persons of the 
greatest culture who spiritually are cast down and 
broken ? The sublime unity is absent, and the har- 
mony which results from a holy heart is wanting. 
There can be no genuine religion without some cult- 
ure of the mind. Christianity is a system of instruc- 
tion ; the world must be taught before it can fully 
believe ; but education is not piety. A beautiful 
work of art would not be appreciated by rude barba- 
rians. Cultivation makes art effective. The developed 
soul and the art production are related to each other 
as the eye and the light ; one is the complement of 
the other. The world needs to be taught in order 
that it may appreciate the beautiful. Therefore, to 
instruct mankind is a first mission of the Church. 
Jesus Christ said, " Go teach all nations " — in other 
words, make scholars of them. All the efforts which 
the Christian Church is putting forth to elevate the 
human race, intellectually as well as morally, are a 
part of her divine mission. 

The world must be saved intellectually as well as 
spiritually and morally. It must be regenerated ; but 
regeneration is something which we cannot explain, 
for it involves mystery. The laws which regulate the 
spiritual life of the world are incomprehensible by all 
who are not able to discern things from their spiritual 
side. Faith is a mystery in its religious aspects ; so 
is electricity in its scientific aspects. But we accept 
all that is taught in reference to electrical science, 
and send our messages without a quibble or a mur- 
muring doubt. We lose sight of the mystery in the 
21 



322 FA GT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

recognized benefit received. Prayer is a mystery, so 
is the action of the will and the beating of the heart, 
but we all believe in will-power and heart-throbs. If 
the new birth in man is a mystery of the Christian 
belief, surely no less so is the new birth and growth 
of a plant in the spring-time ; yet men are ever ask- 
ing of the one, " How can these things be ? " while 
the other does not raise even a question. It is char- 
acteristic of the Scriptures that they require our as- 
sent to statements of belief which seem to thwart the 
pathway of reason. We talk about the Trinity ; ask 
the mathematician if he can explain how three can 
be one, and he will tell you that it involves a contra- 
diction in the law of numbers, and so it does. The 
word trinity is not in the Bible, and yet that the 
trinality of the Godhead is taught there, even in the 
face of a mathematical incongruity, is evident. 

The resurrection of the dead is another mystery. 
We ask the scientist to explain it to us, but it is im- 
possible for him to do so from his stand-point ; he 
can give us no scientific answer. He has many won- 
derful and delicate instruments, but none by which 
he can collect the dust of the long-entombed dead. 
Man's science is wonderful, but God's science is 
more so — it is infinite. In man's hand the crude 
carbon is only carbon ; but in God's hand it is 
transformed into the flashing diamond, queen of 
the jewels. Science cannot explain how the dia- 
mond is formed nor how the dead are raised up; 
but God has created the diamond, and he can raise 
the dead. The doctrine of the resurrection lies out 
beyond all science ; it belongs in the region of the 
unexplainable. The Bible does not tell us how ; it 



THE LOGIC OF EXPERIENCE. 323 

simply declares it — " Thy dead shall live again." All 
the questions which mankind have ever asked concern- 
ing it must remain unanswered until the resurrection 
shall explain its own mode. Let us wait and hope for 
the time when 

" They now rising from the dead 

In luster brighter far shall shine, 
Revive with ever-during hope, 

Safe from diseases and decline.'' 1 

And so it is. Every one who has reached account- 
able years, doubtless, has often thought of the mys- 
terious things which surround us on every side, in 
human life as well as in the providence that is 
over the world. Life is a mystery in its origin and 
in its perpetuation. Death is all around us on every 
hand, and yet no one knows just what death is, for 
none have come back from the " undiscovered coun- 
try " to inform us. We love our friends, but how 
constantly they are going away from us to return no 
more ! Human nature is gifted with mental faculties 
which are content only with knowing, and yet the 
great universe is largely hidden away in impenetrable 
depths. We are invited by our instincts to enter 
God's great temple, but when w r e courageously ap- 
proach the threshold we are ushered only w T ithin the 
vestibule. The angel which stands guard at the door- 
way says, " Thus far shalt thou go, but no farther." 
The venerable man with whitened locks and wrinkled 
brow stands peering into the great deep sea very much 
as he stood and gazed when, as a mere child, he wan- 
dered along its pebbly beach, only perhaps that he 
stands a little nearer, even where the sea-foam may 
moisten his garments. But the scores of years which 



324 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

have transformed the child into the man and given 
courage in place of timidity have not made the sea 
any more shallow ; there are the same hidden depths 
beneath the wild and tumultuous billows, the same 
unveiled mystery of God's great deep. 

In nature every-where there are voices calling to us 
and saying, u Come and see," and then at every step 
an impassable barrier confronts us, or an oppressive 
darkness enshrouds us. Perhaps this is the plan of 
the Father by which to lure us on toward our destiny. 
The most bewitching point in space is where the 
vision is bounded — the hazy rim where the visible 
merges into the invisible. God intends that we shall 
think of the beyond — the world where our faith shall 
be lost in sight. He intends us to learn of the future 
as well as the present, the invisible as well as the 
visible. The pathway meanders up the mountain- 
side ; the eye follows it until it is lost in the shadows 
of the darkened forest, but then we know it leads 
on, even though its course eludes our vision. 80 in 
the deep spiritual things of this life, what clouds of 
thick darkness surround us and hang in the sky over 
us ! How often do they gather alike over the mind 
and over the heart ! But God in any thing is its solu- 
tion. Without his presence all is darkness and mys- 
tery every-where ; with it all is brightness and beauty. 

" If all our hopes and all our fears 

Were prisoned in life's narrow bound; 
If, travelers through this vale of tears, 

We saw no better world beyond, 
0, what could check the rising sigh ? 

W r hat earthly thing could pleasure give ? 
0, who could venture then to die? 

0, who could then endure to live ? " 



THE LOGIC OF EXPERIENCE, 325 

The Scriptures enjoin upon us the performance of 
duties that are impossible to our unaided selves. We 
are required to u love our enemies," and our nature 
cries out, " Impossible ! " It is in human nature to 
crush out our enemies and destroy them. We are also 
commanded to love the Lord our God with all the 
heart, soul, mind, and strength. How can we do this ? 
How can we love a Being which " no man hath seen 
at any time ?" Where is he ? What is he ? 

Let me illustrate : once there stood in the presence 
of Jesus a man with a withered arm ; it hung palsied 
by his side, a constant reminder of the death of the 
body. He had, doubtless, heard of this wonderful 
Plealer, and came to him for help. The poor man's 
condition excited the sympathy of the Lord, who 
knew and felt it all, and so he said to him, " Reach 
hither thy hand." But how can this withered arm 
respond to such a demand ? Jesus might as well have 
required him to roll back the tides or to create a 
world as to comply with such a condition. It was 
impossible for him to obey. How often he had tried 
to lift it up, and how often had he failed ! But j ust 
then, possibly, there flashed upon him a new thought, 
that of endeavor simply, " I will try." No sooner 
is the volition put forth than the arm which had so 
long failed to meet the demands of the will now is 
vested with new strength and is made whole as the 
other. Impossibilities always vanish when God helps, 
whether it be in matters of belief or of practice. " I 
can do all things through Christ which strengthened 
me." So, too, w r e can believe " all things through 
Christ which strengthened " us. 

There is a sense in which it may be said that every 



826 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

healthy mind is naturally skeptical. We use the word 
in a good sense — that is, it is always seeking knowl- 
edge, and it desires to be convinced of the truthful- 
ness of a statement before perfectly accepting it. A 
child believes whatever it is told ; but as it grows in 
years and knowledge it begins to question itself and 
others, and so may develop into skepticism. We all 
know that society in its infancy is credulous and 
superstitious. Christianity among the ignorant is 
largely an emotion ; among the more highly culti- 
vated it is, alas! too apt to be a mere intellection. The 
true type lies between these extremes, in media res. 

We have the charity to believe that a good many 
people drift off into spiritual destitution, not really 
from choice, not because they prefer doubt to faith, 
but who indeed may even desire to understand Chris- 
tianity. The difficulty is they test it by the wrong 
methods. It is subjected to the alembic of the brain 
to the exclusion of the heart. And of all the unfair 
tests which have been employed in investigating 
Christianity that of cold and exacting science is most 
unfair. Science, in her own dominions, is fair and 
reasonable, but her province does not include the 
purely spiritual. 

Science has achieved much, and when used by 
Christian men is the handmaid of religion. Ques- 
tions of science must be settled by scientific methods ; 
philosophy, which enters into the region of pure 
thought, must be examined in the light of intuitions 
and primitive judgments ; history must make its ap- 
peal, not to imagination or dramatic fiction, but to 
facts. Every thing in this world has its own logic; 
every truth with which the mind deals has its own 



THE LOGIC OF EXPERIENCE. 327 

methods of proof ; and hence the measurements are 
diverse. If we would know how much gold there is 
in a given ingot, it must be weighed by a particular 
scale ; if we wish to ascertain how much iron there is 
in a car-load, it must be weighed in another sort of 
scale. If we wish to ascertain how many acres of 
land there are in a certain area, it must be tested by the 
compass and chain of the surveyor. If it be neces- 
sary to know the exact number of men in a congrega- 
tion, they must be counted. Wheat is not measured 
with a tape-line, nor lumber sold by the ton. The eye 
passes judgment on distance ; the ear determines the 
quality of sound, while temperature is ascertained by 
the finger-tips or the thermometer. Some objects 
which engross the human heart and affect the human 
life have their ultimate determination by the intel- 
lect ; this is their final test. In ascertaining the 
difference between tw T o circles or squares, or between 
a cone and a pyramid, the intelligence, not the con- 
science, must come into play. The business interests 
of life — the ledger accounts, which show the debtor 
and credit sides — do not involve the emotions and the 
affections, but lie in the region of our powers of cal- 
culation. There are other subjects which relate to 
our moral nature. Our friendships in life are not 
determined by pure reason ; we do not graduate our 
love for our families by a mathematical scale ; we do 
not regulate the intensity of our affections for friends 
bv the height and weight of their bodies ; were we to 
do so some would get more than their share ; alas for 
others ! Love is not a conclusion merely to be ar- 
rived at by mathematical equations or searched out by 
chemical re-agents. 



328 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

Our Lord said to his disciples, on one occasion, 
what was very full of import : u Unto you it is given 
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but 
unto them it is not given." In another place he says : 
" I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, 
because thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." 

Too many apply the intellect where the heart only 
should be the standard. " Unto you it is given to 
know the mysteries of the kingdom," said Jesus. 
Why? Because you have yielded to it your hearts. 
Spiritual things are judged of by spiritual tests. The 
heart is the center and seat of our sympathies ; spirit- 
ual life does not come by the eye or the ear, or by 
logic, or rhetoric, or music. "Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, 
the things which God hath prepared for them that 
love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by 
his Spirit." 

This brings us to the great question, Has the truth 
of the Christian religion been demonstrated ? The 
ethics of Christianity have been established beyond a 
doubt; the world accepts the moral code fully and 
freely. A revolution in that code would destroy the 
social fabric ; it would be in the moral world like the 
blotting out of the sun in the natural world. 

Some men talk glibly about the division of the 
Church into sects, and sneer at what they call the 
odium tlteologicum / but what about the odium irtedl- 
cum? See how the learned doctors are divided into 
"schools," and, though learned and honest, how essen- 
tially different; but who thinks of repudiating medi- 
cine because of these divisions? There is nothing 



THE LOGIC OF EXPERIENCE. 329 

more certain in this world of religious thought than 
the possibility of reaching a plane where the human 
heart is quickened and comforted by the touch of 
Infinite love. " But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who 
sometime were afar off are made nigh by the blood 
of Christ." Is it true that we may be saved from 
our sins? If so, it is a more wonderful truth than 
any which science has ever published to the world. 
They tell us that the Buddhists in their temples often 
place broad-leaved lilies directly in front of their 
altars as sacred symbols setting forth a great moral 
truth ; that as the pure white flower may spring out 
of the mire and the filth and bloom in loveliness, so 
may the heart of man rise above the wicked and cor- 
rupt world into a state of moral purity. 

Christianity has its own arguments, its own logic, 
its own modes, and they are convincing to the Chris- 
tian. How faithful and clear is the word ! " As many 
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of 
God." How, then, are we to know that we are saved ? 
By science ? No. By art ? No. By culture of the 
mind? Nay, verily. By philosophy? by the logical 
faculties ? by natural intuitions ? By none of these. 
They are all serviceable, all play their part in life ; 
" But because ye are sons of God, he hath sent forth 
his Spirit into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." 
" He that believeth hath the witness in himself." " If 
any man will do his will he shall know of the doc- 
trine." " I know in whom I have believed, and am 
persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have 
committed unto him until that day." 

If what we have said be true, then it follows that the 
main pillar in this temple is experience. Here is true 



830 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

Christian logic, the rock on which we build, " Christ 
in you formed the hope of glory." " The natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : 
for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he 
know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he him- 
self is judged of no man. 55 f Weighed in the balance 
of the heart, in the emotional soul-life, the religion of 
Jesus will never be found wanting. This is our van- 
tage-ground ; here are arguments which only they 
who have followed the leadings of the Spirit can em- 
ploy. Scoffers may denounce, men of the world may 
ridicule, but none of these can argue successfully 
against the Christian's faith. The case of the man 
who was born blind is in point; when inquired of 
concerning the wonderful cure effected by the Sav- 
iour he answered, " Whether he be a sinner or no, 
I know not : one thing I know, that whereas I was 
blind, now I see." 

There is no answer to the jeers and scoffs of disbe- 
lievers so effective as the testimony of a good heart 
and a pure life. One may know nothing of science, 
nothing of general literature, be quite ignorant of 
philosophy, and yet be filled with joy, peace, and light. 
" This is the victory that overcometh the world, even 
our faith." Christianity can never be destroyed by 
its enemies ; for the final test being a spiritual one, 
how can men witness against what, by their own con- 
fession, they have never experienced in their hearts? 
A blind man when asked to give his idea of scarlet said 
it was like the sound of a bugle. So a blind man cannot 
discuss color very successfully with one who can see ; a 

* 1 Cor. ii, 14, 15. 



THE LOGIC OF EXPERIENCE. 831 

deaf man would be a poor critic of music ; a dumb man 
would hardly be thought of as a teacher of elocution. 
He who supposes that Christianity is a hard expe- 
rience, is a delusion, a fiction, or superstition, is as 
much disqualified for his self-assumed position of 
critic as the blind man who claims to be able to give 
direction in the choice of colors for a lady's dress. The 
unbeliever is a negative witness. A witness who on 
the stand knows nothing about the case on trial will 
not be allowed to consume the time of the court. The 
positive witness is important; all true believers, in all 
ages and lands, bear witness to Christ's power to save 
from sin and to give comfort; and on their word and 
testimony rests this grand and beautiful structure, 
The Church of the Living God. 



332 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE GOAL. 

TO understand the real meaning of the word life, as 
it relates to us in this world, would make a great 
change in the manner in which many of us spend our 
years. Most of us think too much and too solemnly 
about heaven — about " the life that is to come," about 
where and what we shall be a thousand or ten thou- 
sand years hence : we are far too anxious to reach a 
heaven of some kind with its promised and expected 
joys, as if the main object in this life were to get 
well out of it and enter some other and unknown 
state and be " happy." That is, in a sense, all well 
enough, but let us remember that the joys of that life 
will not atone for duties left undone in this. If we 
think right, grow right, live right here and now, the 
future will be blissful enough. It is therefore with 
the world as it is, with its struggles, trials, temptations, 
labors, joys, mysteries, poverty, riches-, sickness, and 
all that makes it, we have to do. The Bible was writ- 
ten to guide us in our life journey; it has no other 
meaning or purpose. The greatest thing in the uni- 
verse is life, and of all the living beings on this earth 
man is the noblest, grandest. 

To live is something more than simply to exist. 
An object which is purely inanimate, without thought 
or consciousness, exists ; but the difference between 
that which lives and that which exists merelv is 



THE GOAL. 333 

almost the difference between the finite and the infi- 
nite. "Never shall I forget the phenomenon in my- 
self," said Jean Paul Richter, " never till now recited, 
when I stood by the birth of my own self-conscious- 
ness, the place and time of which are distinct in my 
memory. It was on a certain forenoon that I stood, 
when a very youno* child, within the house-door, and 
was looking out toward the wood- pile, when in an 
instant the inner revelation, I AM I, like lightning 
from heaven, flashed and stood brightly before me ; 
in that moment had I seen myself, as I, for the first 
time and forever." 

A good many of us have had the same experience, 
if it did not dawn upon us quite so suddenly and so viv- 
idly. But who, after all, can define life in such terms 
as to tell us of its depth and meaning? The philoso- 
phies of a thousand years have not been able fully to 
explore the chambers and measure the powers of the 
human soul. Eternity will startle us with its revela- 
tions ; then and then only will we understand fully 
the doings and beings of time. 

We have endeavored in this book to present such 
thoughts and to inculcate such beliefs as would lead 
the reader to the study of the true life of man as held 
up and illustrated in the word of God. It has also 
been the constant effort to hold the mind close to the 
truths that are spiritual. 

We have seen how universal life is; how it sur- 
rounds us every-where — on the one hand so minute as 
to be invisible to the keenest vision, and on the other 
in its larger and more tangible forms, not only in the 
animal, but in the vegetable world. When the grass 
is woven into velvet under our feet in spring-time we 



384 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

say it lives ; the worm which crawls across our path- 
way is also endowed with life. 

Life is every-where ; earth, air, and sea are full of 
it. It ranges from the ephemera of an hour up to the 
angels in heaven, and to the Father of all, whose being 
was without beginning and is without end, for God 
lives. But it is with human life, as we see it and live 
it ourselves — this every-day life, full of cares and 
crosses, temptations and sorrows — this life of hope 
and joy — that we have to do. 

We are taught that life is a probation, by which it 
is only meant that we are on a journey to somewhere 
and to something yet to be, yet to know, yet to expe- 
rience ; and all we see and know and do in this life 
shall in some w r ay influence and make us in that. 
Every thing that has been written in this book, whether 
of the earth itself, the invisible animalcule, the sea- 
monsters, the hordes of animals, wild or domestic, 
every thing, from worm to star, in some way affects 
the conditions of human life. 

This state of being in which we now are placed is 
not always exactly to our liking. Our faces are turned 
sunward, but the way is often rough. There are 
many conditions, not of our choosing ; left to our judg- 
ment, so poor and feeble, things would not be as they 
are always ; but, alas ! how human plans would have 
left the world in darkness and misery ! Some one has 
said, " The web of life is of mingled yarn, good and ill 
together. Our virtues would be proud if it w r ere not for 
our conscious faults, and our crimes w T ould despair if 
they were not balanced by our virtues." 

We have been writing about the Bible, and where- 
fore ? Because all of its laws, morals, inspirations, 



THE GOAL. 335 

examples, are directed to- the human upbuilding. 
Man, intelligent, conscious, moral, is the objective 
point toward which all this points. If it does nothing 
in us, in our lives, then so far as we are concerned the 
book might as well not be. This life is not all ; there 
is a beyond, a place, a condition to which this world- 
pilgrimage leads; and this Bible is our chart, our 
compass, our anchor. 

Not un frequently we find ourselves growing dis- 
heartened because of our weakness and our sinfulness, 
and we call this a hard and unfriendly world ; we 
think of our pathway as a stony one. Many a heart 
has ached and many a soul has felt sad in this life 
journey. But if the pillow on which we lie is some- 
times painful it is often our own wrong-doings that 
have made it so. And if the way of life is lonely and 
burdensome, yet we may have sweet sleep and glori- 
ous visions. It was when Jacob was lying on the 
rock-pillow of Bethel, in the darkness and alone, that 
the ladder was placed with its foot by his side while 
its top reached to heaven, and on which the angels of 
God ascended and descended. So is it with us, from 
our lowest estates of sorrow and humiliation God 
kindly permits us to look up into heaven. 

If we would enjoy life we must take the world as 
it is. Of what is life composed? Eight well do we 
know that a thousand spots of sunshine, a cloud here 
and there, the bright sky, a storm to-day, a calm to- 
morrow, the chill, piercing winds of winter and the 
bland, reviving air of summer — these make up the 
experiences of life. The secret of success in this 
world depends on that most precious of all possessions, 
power over self, power to endure trials, to suffer hard- 



836 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

ships, to meet dangers heroically, power to follow onr 
convictions, no matter where they lead us, the ability 
to be calm in the hour of danger and to be courageous 
when it is darkest. In a physical sense it is through 
inward health that we enjoy all outward worldly 
things; in like manner from a spiritual stand-point 
the world is shaped and colored largely by our own 
mental and moral conditions. 

This constant contact with the world was never 
intended to be always restful. The great Teacher 
said, u In the world ye shall have tribulation," or, 
literally, "In the world ye shall be beaten with a flail." 
It is quite easy when we mingle with the world around 
us to walk in its footsteps, imbibe its spirit, drift with 
its current. It is easy when we are alone to live as 
we wish. Society is a hard master and has many will- 
ing slaves. The great point to be gained is for us to 
carry into life, as we are jostled about in the crowd, 
the sweetness and independence of solitude. Jesus 
Christ summed it all up in that wonderful prayer, U I 
pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the 
world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the 
evil." Human trials vary with our years ; and though 
we think, too often rightly, that sufferings and disap- 
pointments are but " barren trees, whereon grow nei- 
ther flowers nor fruit," it is because we have not re- 
ceived them in the spirit in which they were intended. 
God means that all things shall work together for our 
good ; and so tribulations should bear a rich harvest 
of experience. An uninspired poet wrote, " Sweet 
are the uses of adversity;" an inspired apostle said 
that chastisements "bear the peaceable fruits of right- 
eousness." 



THE GOAL. 337 

How often we trouble ourselves more than is nec- 
essary by our anticipations of the future ! The power 
to anticipate may be used to our advantage, to enlarge 
us, and to lure us on like imagination to a higher des- 
tiny. So far all is well ; but the mistake is that we 
too often anticipate evils, dangers, and troubles that 
never come. Let us not forget that this life is one of 
perpetual contest, and if so how mad are they, and 
how unwise, who fail to arm themselves for the battle ! 
We hear life spoken of as a voyage to some distant 
country, and the sea of life as often a stormy one. 
How mistaken is he who sleeps while his bark is be- 
ing driven before fierce winds upon hidden rocks ! 
If life be a pilgrimage, as it is often called, how un- 
wise is the man who strays from the plain pathway 
of truth and rio^ht into the mazes of sin and does not 
even seek any return until the twilight shades of death 
gather about him ! A voice speaks to us from out the 
dim and shadowy past, saying, "Man that is born of 
a woman is of few days, and full of trouble ; " but 
the same voice cries, " Though he slay me, yet will I 
trust in him." 

People who complain most of the evils of this world 
are generally those who are most unwilling to practice 
self-denial or to submit to such disciplines as are salu- 
tary and on which the highest happiness is founded. 
We are told by the natural historian that the frost 
which nips the foliage of the mulberry-trees does not 
kill the silk-worm cradled in its leaves. So calamities 
may overtake us and envelop us ; but if we are right- 
minded our real life may not be touched. Some one 
has compared the human heart to a feather-bed, which 

needs to be roughly handled, well shaken, and exposed 

22 



338 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT 

to a variety of turns to prevent it from becoming 
hard and knotty. The illustration is homely but 
true. 

We murmur and complain a good deal at the hard- 
ships of life, but are generally unwilling to die and 
leave them. People who are always talking about 
their willingness to leave the world are gener- 
ally the very ones to be most alarmed when death 
threatens. There is some real good in the actual evils 
of this life, for they deliver us, while they do last, 
from a thousand worse ones which the imagination 
may create. The difference between men is often 
like that between some species of serpents and honey- 
bees : they extract the same juices from some plants, 
but the one converts them into poison, the other into 
honey. An ill, a great disappointment, will drive one 
man to Christ, another to Satan. While many of us 
fret and worry over the doubtful, the mysterious in life, 
all must submit to the inevitable. Some flowers need 
to be crushed that they may emit their imprisoned 
fragrance ; so in human life, the crushing process is 
often the way to the highest moral development. The 
beautiful paper on w r hich these words are impressed 
was made from old and possibly filthy rags ; but the 
acids purified them and the iron-toothed machine tore 
them into fragments and ground them into pulp first. 
Out of great losses and tribulations are often devel- 
oped the noblest characters, as the finest gold comes 
from the seven times heated furnace. Jesus of Naz- 
areth told us that the way to save life is to lose it. 
Plunge into the battle of life and win, even though it 
be by dying. 

This seems like a hard saying, for most of us prefer 



THE GOAL. 339 

to live rather than to die even in a good cause. But 
lie who falls in the pathway of duty deserves a nobler 
name than the general who leads a victorious army 
over the ruins of a conquered kingdom. " Except a 
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth 
alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Yes, 
life has its hardships, and should have, for in them the 
heart grows strong and the faith may become almost 
omnipotent. The difficulty is, we too often double 
the real evils that environ us by pondering over them 
too closely, until in our broodings a mere scratch be- 
comes a wound, a slight an injury, a playful jest an 
insult, a small peril a great danger. Brooding appre- 
hensions may convert health into sickness and darken 
a sky which God has made bright. You have 
felt many a pang and many a trouble, dear reader, 
possibly ; but often those which have vexed you 
most have been such as you were merely expecting. 
That which we dread most is often passed by w r ith ease. 
Is it not well that God has made the plan of our 
lives, and not w r e ourselves? He has mingled sun- 
shine and shadow, mountain and valley, rocky ledge and 
grassy slope, to make up the picture of life. Constant 
prosperity may harden the heart, as perpetual sun- 
shine does the earth ; but when the heart is softened 
by the tears of sorrow, and the earth by the refresh- 
ing showers, alike they yield the best of fruits. 
Goodness is twice blessed — in what it gives and what 
it receives. The peace and comfort we impart to 
others is restored to our own bosoms by the satis- 
faction of an approving conscience, as the vapors 
which ascend through the day fall back at night in 
rain-showers upon the land. 



340 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOL Y WRIT. 

The danger is that the powers of our minds, when 
unbounded and expanded by too much worldly good, 
too much sunshine, may luxuriate into sin and folly 
rather than blossom into genuine goodness of heart. 
More human souls have grown great under the storms 
of adversity than from the sunshine of good fortune. 
The spirit which recognizes the good in the world is 
far wiser and better than that which is always on 
the search for evil. God's plan is to compel our 
thought and reflection, and thus increase wisdom 
and knowledge in us, which can never be acquired 
without both pains and application. These are alike 
troublesome and perplexing; but, like deep digging 
for pure water, when you reach the fountain the 
water is sure to rise up and meet you. That is the 
point of victory. 

The problem of life is not solved by merely looking 
at the dark side. What does life become ? What is 
its use ? In other words, why do we live ; who or 
what is ever benefited by the days we, as individuals, 
spend on earth ? These are pertinent questions and 
are ever confronting us. Who has not looked upon 
some poor mortal greatly cast down in the circum- 
stances of life, overthrown in worldly fortune, health 
gone, and friends few in number ? But, turning from 
such human depressions, have we not seen something 
in the great world-book around us to shed light on 
the dark scene ? We have seen how God can carpet 
the sterile rock with the velvet moss; how the ivy 
under the touch of his finger will cling to the molder- 
ing ruin; how the pine and cedar will remain fresh 
and fadeless amid the mutations of the dying year. 
Life comes from death every- where. 



THE GOAL. 341 

Iii the coldest and darkest hour of life God's 
smile puts a rainbow in the sky. Something green 
and beautiful, something grateful and refreshing to 
the soul, the Father has left untouched by death. It 
matters not what may be our life-lot, there are still 
spiritual vines to twine their tendrils around the altars 
and broken arches of the otherwise desolate temples 
of the human heart. They who have only the good 
of this life are poor indeed. The truest riches, like 
the purest joys, are spiritual. There is a difference 
between necessities and wants. The wants of life for 
the greater part are merely artificial. God has am- 
ply provided for life's necessities. We must seek our 
true joy and our highest good where they can only 
be found — in ourselves as gifts of God. Here we 
shall discover a greater resource than all outer objects 
are capable of affording. Alas for those who have 
no hope beyond the present ! What is life to them 
but one long care for its mere temporal benefits, one 
perpetual struggle with moral evil ? 

Pleasure and pain alike tend to destroy our ener- 
gies, and there is probably a period in almost every 
one's life when the soul as earnestly desires the repose 
of the grave as the body does the rest and quiet of the 
night. " Godliness with contentment is great gain ; " 
and a man's life " consisteth not in the abundance of 
the things which he possesseth." Real happiness 
only begins where our wishes end ; they who are ever 
pining after more really enjoy nothing. 

If we are not content with such things as we have 
we might not be satisfied with the things we most 
desire were we to possess them ; for it is not what we 
own and control so much as what we are in our- 



342 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

selves that forms the basis of our happiness and con- 
stitutes our true life. 

If we allow ourselves to dwell w T ith envy upon the 
riches, honors, or ease of those around ns in society 
we irritate ourselves, so that a mere congestion be- 
comes an inflammation, and that turns into gangrene 
and death ; besides, we may be finding fault with 
Providence. 

It is a common mistake with many to regard those 
things as necessary which are only ornamental, and 
to depend upon outward surroundings for inward 
happiness. The only true happiness which the world 
can ever know arises from virtue and communion 
with God. All this discipline of which we have been 
talking does something in us ; we are either made 
better or worse by it. A man who passes through 
life meeting all its disappointments bravely, enduring 
all its trials heroically, and withal remaining sweet in 
temper may, indeed, be called a perfect man. " He 
is a weak man who cannot twist and weave the 
threads of his feelings, however fine, however tangled, 
however strained, or however strong, into the great 
cable of purpose by which he lies moored to his life 
of action." 

Life is intended to develop in us what may be 
called true heroism — sturdiness of character. He 
who looks upon life as merely an extended play is 
like one who attempts to shield himself from the 
blasts of winter with garments of thread-lace, or who 
endeavors to satisfy his hunger with condiments and 
flavoring extracts. God tries men sometimes in the 
furnace to save them from themselves and from 
melancholy. More than half of the melancholy one 



THE GOAL. 843 

meets in life is the result of indolence. There are 
thousands of rich and idle people in the world who 
imagine themselves ill, but who are only lazy. "Were 
they to rush out into life seeking for channels of 
good work and scattering their money with a lavish 
hand upon the poor and needy they would have cheeks 
like roses and eyes of fire ; they would reach a height 
of happiness which neither money nor ease can ever 
purchase. The burden of work is on the world. 
The Master has said: " Son, go work in my vine- 
yard." The very best cure for low spirits is hard 
work. 

To be deprived of much makes us love the little 
we have and think of the destitute. And what is 
true of life generally is particularly true of our spirit- 
ual lives. Success means surrender: "The meek 
shall inherit the earth." u Pleasure loves the garden 
and the flowers ; labor loves the field and the plow ; 
devotion loves the mountain, the skies, and God." The 
happiest people in the world are those who labor in 
some calling. God never gave organization to a body 
to be motionless and idle. Some of the greatest bat- 
tles of history have been fought by a few troops, but 
they were turning-points in the world's history. So 
in human life, small things are great. It requires 
more courage often to cast aside a small sin than it 
does to risk ten thousand dollars in a doubtful specu- 
lation. Some sins have no hold upon us but in con- 
nection with some other sin. When a man forsakes 
a pet sin, one he has loved, he is like the woodsman who 
cuts down a tree — the branches fall with the trunk. 
In like manner virtue has its connections ; we cannot 
be holy to-day and sinful to-morrow — holy in one 



344 FA CT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

thing and sinful in another. No; there is no heaven- 
liness in sinful indulgences ; there are pleasures, but 
such pleasures are for the most part short-lived, false, 
and deceitful, and, like drunkenness, they revenge the 
jolly madness of one hour with the sad repentance of 
many. A vicious habit, an indulged little sin, a 
neglected duty, can easily be taken care of to-day if 
we are so minded, but let alone may send one's soul 
into the shades of night. 

A man's goodness should not be measured by his 
occasional exertion, but by his every-day life. No 
one ever thinks of buying a house from a specimen 
brick ; nor should we judge of a man by his capabil- 
ities, but by what he actually does or tries to do for 
the world around him. Great talents render a man 
famous ; great merit will command respect every- 
where ; extensive learning will gain esteem, but a 
good heart wins the world. 

It requires a great deal of real heroism to confess 
one's ignorance at times, and yet that is what w r e all 
must do more or less if we would gain knowledge. 
The thoughtful life is made up largely of interro- 
gation-points. The great Franklin said, " Ask ques- 
tions about what you do not understand, ask modestly 
and seriously, then listen to the answers and think 
w^ell of them. A man who knows nothing can give 
you no light on any subject ; but almost any one can 
tell you something you don't know. I have gained 
some valuable information from the humble black- 
smith who shoes my horse." There are two classes 
of persons who can afford to be modest — those who 
possess a large amount of knowledge and those who 
have but little. But it is one of the lessons we must 



THE GOAL. 345 

learn, not to think of ourselves "more highly than 
we ought to think." When one's self-esteem is so 
great that he regards himself as wiser than his fellows, 
and when he supposes his faults to be better than other 
people's virtues, we may say truthfully that he has 
rather an exalted opinion of himself. 

The world judges of us not by what we say, but by 
what we do and what we love. When a man mani- 
fests delight in low and sordid objects — the vulgar 
song, the ribald jest — or takes pleasure in the misfort- 
unes of other men, or in cruelty, even though it be 
toward the meanest living thing, it somehow deter- 
mines the complexion of character. On the other 
hand, they who love purity, modesty, truth, who pur- 
sue virtuous things in life, impress themselves upon 
us as righteous. 

" Thoughts, melancholy and gay, careless and bitter, 
how like innumerable fairy fingers they are ever play- 
ing on that mysterious harp, the human soul ! Who 
can trace them through their long continuous course 
or define their dim and shadowy relations with each 
other? Every human soul is a volume in itself, 
bound together by reason, though fancy may vary and 
gild the pages." 

Life is far more than we know now or can know. 
Only eternity can reveal the value of time, and death 
alone can show us what life really is. The weakness 
and folly of childhood, the vanity and vices of youth, 
the bustle and care of mid-life, and the infirmities of 
old age, what do they give us ? Experience. A short 
life indeed ; yet man has a soul of vast desires and 
vast possibilities, and eternity is before him. He is 
capable of much and aims at more.; many things he 



346 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLT WRIT. 

cannot attain, and many are not worth the effort 
made to attain them. O, it is a pity that he should 
not know how always to choose the good and refuse 
the evil, as well as to know how to make the most and 
best of so short a life ! The way of life divides at the 
grave ; the soul goes upward or it goes downward, goes 
into darkness or into light. One thing we must remem- 
ber — never to make the avoidance of punishment a 
reason for avoiding sin; in other words, never seek heav- 
en simply to be happy, but because it is best and right. 
The spiritual life — the " heaven-begun-below " life 
— is the only one which satisfies the soul. " Man.shall 
not live by bread alone." 

" The world can never give 
The bliss for which we sigh." 

The life fullest of God is the one fullest of joy. It was 
this which made one of old cry out, " My cup runneth 
over." 

"True riches consist in that which sufficeth, and 
not in that which is superfluous." " Our brains are 
seventy-year clocks," wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
u The angel of life winds them up once for all, then 
closes the case and gives the key into the hand of the 
angel of the resurrection." We live, we die, we are 
swallowed up in the great abyss ; there is a ripple on 
the surface for a moment only, the earth closes over us, 
and the world goes on just as it did ; only a few watch- 
ers at the tomb will hold us in remembrance. But 
this is not all ; this is not the end : life stretches away 
into the future, far beyond the reach of the wildest 
imagination. Do we ask, What is life ? It is a throb, 
an inspiration, a great duty, an expectancy, a hope, a 
thrill ! All the waters of the globe have come out of 



THE GOAL. 347 

the sea, and all are going back again into its bosom. 
We have all come into being by the power of God, 
and we are all turning back into infinity again. There- 
fore the life most true, most valuable to the world, and 
the one surest of bliss in the "undiscovered country" 
is the one with the most of God in it. As we study 
it here and now Ave are looking at it only partially. 
The spiritual lies very close to the natural: only a thin 
veil separates the two worlds. iS T o one knows or can 
know where heaven is. The universe is God's house. 
This world is one of the rooms in that house. There 
are two possible heavens to every mortal — that above 
and out of sight, and that which is within us ; it is 
possible to fail of both; but this we know — the heaven 
within is first and is essential to the heaven without. 

"We may travel the world over to find the beautiful; 
but if the sense of the beautiful is not in us we shall 
never see it. We may roam the universe through to 
find heaven, and yet we will never find it, if it be not 
in our own hearts. People have sometimes quarreled 
over their religious creeds ; but they who are always 
disputing about their religion give proof to the world 
that they have not much to dispute about. 

Some people are like the old Moravians, who, it is 
said, made gardens of their grave-yards, while others 
are like the Jews, who made grave-yards of their gar- 
dens. True religion is first pure, then peaceable, and 
puts beauty every-where. The restless spirit argues, 
the peaceful mind judges, the strong arm may load 
the scales, but only the quiet hand can hold the bal- 
ance. How much peace has been banished from the 
world by heresy -hunters and by fierce theological 
combats over nothing ! As two chords keyed alike in 



348 FACT AND FICTION IN HOLY WRIT. 

two instruments in a room will answer the one to the 
other, so is there a correspondence between this heaven 
and that. Death is but the door- way out of this world 
into that higher and better one, and so death to a 
Christian is a triumphal march witnessed by the in- 
numerable company of " just men made perfect," and 
such a death is glorious. Glory is so enchanting that 
we love whatever we associate with it, even war or 
death." The apostle of old said, " For to me. to live is 
Christ, and to die is gain." We care not how rich or 
great or learned, that life is a failure which is not 
lured forward by thoughts of heaven and immortality. 
We are going upward on our pathway of destiny. 
Every day stamps us with some mark or design or 
impression, and these we shall carry with us forever. 
We shall be there what this life makes us here ; 
let us not forget that conduct is destiny ! Our thoughts, 
our words, our affections, and as certainly our afflic- 
tions, all unite to make us one thing or the other. 
Again we ask, " What is your life? " Only God knows ; 
only eternity can tell. u It doth not yet appear what 
we shall be." " Man is the hero of the eternal epic 
composed by the divine intelligence." 

" Man's actions here," wrote Thomas Carlyle, " are 
of infinite moment to him, and never die or end at 
all. Man reaches upward high as heaven, downward 
low as hell, and in his threescore years of time holds 
an eternity fearfully and wonderfully hidden. The 
universe is the realized thought of God." 

" 'Tis immortality deciphers man, 

And opens all the mystery of his make." 

THE END. 



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